U.S Foreign Policy in the Middle e

ANALYZING MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICIES

AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE

At a time when the Middle East and North Africa – host to most of the world’s oil

and gas reserves – are often identified with threats of instability, ‘rogue states,’

terrorism and migration, Europe has its own particular concerns about the region

that sits on its doorstep. Yet a genuine understanding of what drives the behaviour

of these states remains elusive.

This book provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of Middle Eastern

foreign policies in general, and for understanding these states’ relations with

Europe in particular. It examines the domestic, regional and international

environments that condition these policies, and investigates the actual policy

output through a wide range of country studies drawn from the Maghreb, the

Mashreq, the Gulf and Turkey. Europe is treated here both as a target of these

foreign policies, and as part of the environment that shapes them.

This south-to-north perspective, using the tools of Foreign Policy Analysis, fills a

major gap in the literature on Euro-Middle Eastern relations. It also adds to the

study of International Relations by throwing light on wider questions about ‘Third

World’ foreign policy.

This book is an extensively revised, expanded and updated version of a special

issue of The Review of International Affairs.

Gerd Nonneman is Reader in International Relations and Middle East Politics at

Lancaster University, and a former Executive Director of the British Society for

Middle Eastern Studies.

ANALYZING MIDDLEEAST FOREIGN POLICIESAND THE RELATIONSHIP

WITH EUROPE

Edited byGerd Nonneman

First published 2005by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

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� Gerd Nonneman 2005

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from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0–714-65530-9 (hbk)ISBN 0-714-68427-9 (pbk)

Notes on Contributors

Gerd Nonneman is Reader in International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster

University (UK), a Council member of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies and a

former Executive Director of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies. Educated at Ghent

(Belgium) and Exeter Universities, he lived and worked in Iraq and has conducted research

throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He previously taught at the Universities of Exeter,

Manchester and the International University of Japan. Among his previous books areWar & Peace in

the Gulf (Ithaca Press, 1991) (with Anoushiravan Ehteshami) and, as editor, The Middle East and

Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration (Federal Trust/European Commission, 1993), Political

and Economic Liberalization: Dynamics and Linkages in Comparative Perspective (Lynne Rienner,

1996), and Muslim Communities in the New Europe (Ithaca Press, 1997). He has published an extensive

range of articles and policy papers, including Terrorism, Gulf Security and Palestine: Issues for an EU-

GCC Dialogue (Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, 2002).

Paul Aarts is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science,

University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on Middle East politics and economics, including

five edited volumes (all in Dutch) and numerous contributions to scholarly journals (in Dutch, French,

EnglishandJapanese)andbooks (inDutchandEnglish).Hisrecentpublications includeTheOil Weapon:

aOne-ShotEdition? (AbuDhabi:ECSSR,1999).HehasundertakenconsultancyworkontheMiddleEast

for the DutchMinistry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and other institutions.

Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Bu Said serves as Undersecretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Sultanate of Oman. He joined the Ministry in 1989 as First Secretary, heading the Office of Political

Analysis. In 1990, he received the rank of Counselor in the Office of the Minister of State for Foreign

Affairs. In this capacity, he accompanied the Minister on numerous foreign visits and he represented

Oman in a wide range of international contexts: with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United

Nations, the United States, the European Union, the Arab League and in the Middle East peace

process. In 1995 he was promoted to rank of Ambassador and appointed Head of the Minister’s

Office. In 1998 he was appointed Undersecretary. Sayyid Badr was educated in Oman and

subsequently at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, where he obtained an M.Litt. in Politics,

Philosophy, and Economics.

Mustafa Aydi.n is Associate Professor of International Relations at Ankara University and the

Turkish National Security Academy. He was UNESCO Fellow at the Richardson Institute for Peace

Studies, Lancaster University (1999), and Fulbright Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of

Government, Harvard University (2002). Besides his books and articles on Turkey, its foreign policy

and Caucasian security and geopolitics, he is currently co-editing three volumes on Turkish foreign

policy: Greek-Turkish Relations in the 21st Century: Escaping from the Security Dilemma in the Aegean

(with K. Ifantis); Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: A Changing Role in World Politics (with

T. Y. Ismael); and Turkish-American Relations: 200 Years of Divergence and Convergence (with C.

Erhan).

Abdulla Baabood is an Omani analyst with over 15 years of international business experience and a

keen interest in GCC economic and political development, an area on which he has presented papers

at international seminars and workshops. He is a member of a number of academic and professional

bodies and institutions and has been called on for expert briefings and brainstorming sessions at the

Royal Institute of International Affairs and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He holds an

MBA and an MA in International Relations and has just completed a PhD thesis on EU–GCC Inter-

Regional Dialogue at the University of Cambridge.

Emad Gad is a Senior Researcher at the International Relations Unit of the Center for Political and

Strategic Studies (CPSS), Al Ahram Foundation, in Cairo. He holds a PhD in Political Science, with a

thesis on ‘The Impact of World Order on International Alliances’. His research interests encompass

alliance theory, regional conflicts, the Middle East Peace Process, security dialogue in the

Mediterranean and the Middle East, European Affairs and future studies in World Order. Among

his books (in Arabic) are Palestine: The Land and the People from 1948 to Oslo Agreement (CPSS, 1999)

and, as editor, European Union: from Economic Cooperation to Common Foreign and Security Policy

(CPSS, 2001), European Union and Middle East, the Experience of the Past and Perspectives of the Future

(CPSS, 2001), The Israeli election 2001 (CPSS, 2001) and International Intervention between the Political

and the Humanitarian (CPSS, 2000).

Raymond Hinnebusch is Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics at the

University of StAndrews in Scotland.Hismost recent publications include The International Relations of

the Middle East (Manchester University Press, 2003) and, co-edited with Anoushiravan Ehteshami, The

Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Lynne Rienner, 2001). He has also published widely on Syrian

politics and foreign policy, including Syria: Revolution from Above (Routledge, 2000), Syria and Iran:

Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (withAnoushiravan Ehteshami) (Routledge, 1997), ‘The

Politics of Economic Liberalization in Syria’, in ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol.18, no.2, 1997, ‘Pax Syriana?

The Origins, Causes and Consequences of Syria’s Role in Lebanon’, inMediterranean Politics, Vol.3,

no.1, 1998, and Syria and the Middle East Peace Process (with Alastair Drysdale) (Council on Foreign

Relations Press, 1991).

Dennis Janssen is completing postgraduate studies in International Relations at the University of

Amsterdam.

Nizar Messari is an Assistant Professor at Pontifıcia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Until 2001 he taught International Relations at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. Among

his recent publications are ‘Identity and Foreign Policy – The Case of Islam in US Foreign Policy’, in

Vendulka Kubalkova (ed.) Foreign Policy in a Constructed World (New York: ME Sharpe, 2001),

‘National Security, the Political Space and Citizenship: The Case of Morocco and the Western

Sahara’, Journal of North African Studies, Vol.6, no.4, and ‘The State and Dilemmas of Security’,

Security Dialogue, Vol.33, no.4, December 2002.

Ziba Moshaver is a Research Associate at the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, at the

School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She obtained an MA from the University of

Tehran and a DPhil from Oxford University. She specializes and has taught on the politics and

international relations of the Middle East. She has published, among other works, The State and

Global Change: The Political Economy of Transition in the Middle East and North Africa (Curzon, 2001)

(edited with Hasan Hakimian).

Tom Pierre Najem is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Politics at the University of

Windsor, Canada. He previously taught political economy at the universities of Al-Akhawayn

(Morocco) and Durham (UK). His publications include Lebanon: The Politics of a Penetrated Society

(London: Routledge, 2003), Lebanon’s Renaissance: The Political Economy of Reconstruction (London:

Ithaca Press, 2000) and, as editor, Good Governance in the Middle Eastern Oil Monarchies (Curzon-

Routledge, 2002).Among recent articles are ‘Privatisationand theState inMorocco:NominalObjectives

andProblematicRealities’,MediterraneanPolitics,Vol.6, no.2, 2001and ‘HumanRightsDevelopment in

Morocco: ANew Era?’,Mediterranean Journal for Human Rights, Vol.4, no.1, 2000.

Alberto Tonini obtained his PhD in the History of International Relations from the University of

Florence, Italy, with a published thesis on The Western Countries and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (in

Italian). He was then granted a post-PhD fellowship and he is now completing a new book on Italy

and the quest for oil during the era of Mattei’s stewardship of Italy’s state energy company, ENI.

From November 1995 to March 2003 he was National Secretary of Sesamo, the Italian Society for

Middle Eastern Studies.

Michael Willis is King Mohammed IV Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies at St.

Antony’s College, Oxford University. He previously taught North African politics and International

Relations at Al Akhawaya University (Ifrane, Morocco). His previous publications include The

Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1996) and ‘The Arab Maghreb

Union’ (with Nizar Mesari) in David Lesch (ed.) History in Dispute: The Middle East Since 1945,

Vol.14 (Manly, 2003). He is currently writing a book on the comparative politics of North Africa.

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors v

Introduction 1

GERD NONNEMAN

Analyzing the Foreign Policies of the Middle East and North Africa:

A Conceptual Framework 6

GERD NONNEMAN

The Three Environments of Middle East Foreign Policy Making and

Relations with Europe 19

GERD NONNEMAN

Analyzing Moroccan Foreign Policy and Relations with Europe 43

MICHAEL WILLIS AND NIZAR MESSARI

Egyptian–European Relations: From Conflict to Cooperation 64

EMAD GAD

Globalization and Generational Change: Syrian Foreign Policy

between Regional Conflict and European Partnership 81

RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH

Lebanon and Europe: The Foreign Policy of a Penetrated State 100

TOM PIERRE NAJEM

Propaganda versus Pragmatism: Iraqi Foreign Policy in Qasim’s

Years, 1958–63 123

ALBERTO TONINI

Dynamics and Determinants of the GCC States’ Foreign Policy, with

Special Reference to the EU 145

ABDULLA BAABOOD

Revolution, Theocratic Leadership and Iran’s Foreign Policy:

Implications for Iran–EU Relations 174

ZIBA MOSHAVER

The Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy, and Turkey’s

European Vocation 197

MUSTAFA AYDIN

Shades of Opinion: the Oil Exporting Countries

and International Climate Politics 223

PAUL AARTS AND DENNIS JANSSEN

Explaining International Politics in the Middle East: The Struggle of

Regional Identity and Systemic Structure 243

RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH

Afterword

Small States’ Diplomacy in the Age of Globalization: An Omani

Perspective 257

BADR BIN HAMAD AL BU SAID

Index 263

Introduction

GERD NONNEMAN

This study is the outcome of a two-year project, sponsored by the Mediterranean

Program of the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre for

Advanced Studies, which aimed to bring a new perspective to the study both of

Middle Eastern–European relations and of Foreign Policy Analysis of

developing states – hoping to contribute, in order words, both to the discipline

of International Relations and to Middle East Area Studies. The ‘Middle East’ is

used here as encompassing the Arab world plus Iran, Turkey and Israel

(although Israeli policy itself is not part of our enquiry, as it is not a developing

state, features quite different dynamics, and has, in any case, received

considerably more attention already). An alternative label spells out the

inclusion of the Maghreb by specifying the region of interest as ‘The Middle

East and North Africa’, or ‘MENA’ region – the latter acronym having become

familiar in a number of policy fora and initiatives.

While Euro-Arab and Euro-Middle Eastern relations have received a fair

degree of academic attention over the past decade, most of this attention has

taken one or more of five forms:

1. Overviews of a presumed Mediterranean system – whether as a security

complex, or as a merely geographically defined theatre within which

economic and security interests are played out.1

2. Studies of Europe’s interests in the MENA region.

3. Reviews of European policy.2

4. Policy recommendations for Europe.

5. Explorations of the causes of cultural misunderstanding.

Amid all this, an obvious lens through which to view one half of the equation

has been left strikingly underused: namely, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA)

focusing on the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states

themselves – which would allow the South-to-North perspective to be placed in

its proper context.

This reflects a similar bias in the study of International Relations and Foreign

Policy Analysis: by and large, ‘North–South relations’ have been studied in a

fashion that reflects the ordering of those labels more generally – either because,

in most cases, the focus was on the policies and interests of the ‘Northern’ end of

the equation; or, from a more critical perspective, because of an assumption that

the key determinant was the straightjacket of Northern-imposed dependency

within which Southern states have found themselves. It is hoped that the

analytical framework suggested in the editor’s own contribution – honed

through discussion with the other members of the group – together with the case

studies that follow it, may help enrich the theoretical debate on the context and

determinants of the foreign policies of states of the South – or indeed the

multifarious category of ‘small’ states.

Nine of the 13 contributions to this volume began as papers presented in a

workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North African States’

Foreign Policies: with Special Reference to their Relations with Europe’,

directed by the editor, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research

Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002, which was

organized by the Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre for

Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. The workshop

participants were selected on the basis of a large number of responses to an

international call for papers, based on an early version of the editor’s

‘Framework for Analysis’ (which became the first two chapters in this study).

Intensive discussion at the workshop was followed up over the following year,

and all contributions which were eventually selected for inclusion in this study

were substantially rewritten. In addition, two further contributions, on Egypt and

Morocco, were brought in shortly after the workshop; these authors, too, became

integral members of the project and based their work on a consideration of the

framework put forward.

This book was developed from a Special Issue of the journal Review of

International Affairs, which included a book reviews section. While the latter has

no place in the book, a review article by Raymond Hinnebusch that appeared in

the Special Issue (‘Identity in International Relations: Constructivism versus

Materialism and the Case of the Middle East’) was felt to be of such importance

in deepening the exploration of some conceptual issues introduced in the volume,

that the author was asked, and gracefully agreed, to turn this paper into a proper

final chapter for the purpose of the book. The first chapter was significantly

amended for the book version, to bring greater clarity and comprehensiveness to

the conceptual framework, hopefully furthering more effectively our aim of

integrating the study of International Relations (IR) with that of the Middle East.

The second chapter was extensively updated. Minor corrections were also

introduced in a number of other chapters. In a sense, therefore, the book is

already in its ‘revised and expanded second edition’ from the start.

The common starting framework and subsequent exchange and coordination,

however, did not mean that the contributors were wholly constrained: where

variations on, departures from, or even clear disagreements with the original

framework were judged appropriate, either in conceptual terms or because

authors felt particular emphases and formats of presentation better brought out

the salient points of their argument, this was encouraged. We hope the reader

will agree the result is all the more enriching for it.

The first chapter suggests an analytical framework for studying the foreign

policies of MENA states both in general and with special reference to their

relations with Europe. It argues for an approach to studying MENA states’

foreign policy that is rooted in an eclectic (or ‘theoretically pluralist’) ‘complex

model of international politics’. Explanations in Foreign Policy Analysis, it is

argued, must be multi-level and multi-causal, as well as contextual.

2 ANALYZING MIDDLE EASTERN FOREIGN POLICIES

The levels on which MENA states’ foreign policy determinants must be

examined are domestic, regional, and international. At the domestic level, the

key categories of determinants are:

1. The nature of the state (secure/insecure, extent of ‘national’ identity

consolidation, authoritarian/liberalizing, rentier/non-rentier).

2. The nature and interests of the regime.

3. Capabilities (especially economic and technological).

4. The decision-making system.

5. Decision-makers’ perceptions and role conception.

The regional level combines, on the one hand, these states’ immediate

strategic environment; and, on the other, the transnational ideological issues of

(pan)Arabism and Islam. These latter issues retain some force as a constraint on

regimes’ foreign policy behavior, and in some cases as a resource to be deployed

in the pursuit of the maintenance of a domestic or regional constituency, against

domestic, regional or international threats. But it is suggested that their salience

has diminished relative to interests defined within the context of the territorial

state, as states and associated identities have become consolidated.

The international environment presents a range of resources (economic,

military, political) as well as challenges and constraints (threats, dependence).

The composition of this environment will vary from state to state, depending

among other things on the state’s location. The increasing hold of the

‘globalizing’ trend in economics and politics also changes the environment

within which regimes have to make their domestic and foreign policy choices.

Europe, and European policy, are part of this international environment

In ‘omnibalancing’ between the pressures and opportunities in these three

environments, foreign policy orientation and behavior has increasingly focused

on the pragmatic pursuit of regime and state interests, rather than ideology,

especially since the 1970s. These interests are essentially those of regime

survival and consolidation, and state consolidation, and the acquisition of the

political and economic means to ensure them.

In this pursuit, the chapter argues, the extent of autonomy MENA states have,

or can carve out, from ‘core’ actors in the international political economy is

greater than dependency thinking has allowed for, because, among other things,

there has been competition between core actors themselves, and core powers’

interests tend to lie in different areas and are much more globally scattered than

is the case for those of MENA states. This, it is suggested, creates potential room

for maneuver for adept leaders. The higher the level of state formation already

achieved, the greater the autonomy from domestic pressures, and hence the

easier the omnibalancing game and the attendant ‘polygamy’ (or ‘managed

multi-dependence’) are likely to become.

The second chapter homes in more specifically on the three environments

(domestic, regional, and international) that shape MENA states’ foreign

policies. Since Europe, and European policies, are a crucial part of the

external environment (regional/international) which contributes to shaping

INTRODUCTION 3

MENA states’ own policies, not least towards Europe itself, the study also

provides a brief overview of the evolution of European policy towards the

region and its component parts. It ends with some preliminary conclusions

about MENA states’ policies towards Europe. Nine salient features are

suggested:

1. They are by and large pragmatic rather than ideological.

2. They are based in the first place on a view of Europe as a source of

economic resources and technology.

3. Nevertheless, some constraint continues to be imposed by the Palestine

issue and nationalist motifs.

4. Policies are also in some measure based on a view of Europe as a

counterweight to the US.

5. There is a residual but strongly varying effect of colonial/imperial relations.

6. MENA states differentiate between European states also because of existing

levels of economic links and interests, and because of perceived differences

in European states’ foreign policy stances.

7. There are large variations flowing from the nature, needs and location of the

MENA state/regime in question – variables that encompass both ‘material’

and ‘ideational’ factors.

8. Two significant irritants are European reluctance genuinely to open up its

own market in key sectors, such as agriculture and petrochemicals, and

European political pressure over political reform.

9. Finally, MENA policies towards Europe are individual (state) at least as

much as collective (Arab/Muslim/Gulf/Maghreb), as a consequence both of

the intra-MENA differences listed above, and Europe’s own approach,

which has been predominantly bilateral (albeit masked by a wider

framework in the case of the Mediterranean).

In subsequent chapters, a range of case studies covering the region from

Morocco to Iran engage with this framework in more detail (although, as already

indicated, it was left to authors’ judgement how explicit this should be made – or

indeed whether they wished to diverge from it – to achieve the most effective

analysis). The cases of Morocco (Michael Willis and Nizar Messari), Egypt

(Emad Gad), Syria (Raymond Hinnebusch), Lebanon (Tom Pierre Najem), the

states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Abdulla Baabood), Iran (Ziba

Moshaver) and Turkey (Mustafa Aydın) are examined systematically, drawing

attention to the specificities of each while also allowing the reader to discover

the parallels. With Iraq in post-Saddam flux, any treatment of that country’s

foreign policy must of necessity be historical; rather than offer a survey of the

much-analyzed Saddam era, Alberto Tonini offers a useful historical

comparative case, considering the reign of Abdulkarim Qasim, the country’s

first republican president, whose foreign policy was driven and constrained by

many of the same factors. Paul Aarts and Dennis Janssen examine one

illuminating aspect of foreign policy of special importance both to the MENA

region and to Europe – viz. the positions taken by key Middle East oil producers


on the question of climate change, in particular vis-a-vis the European Union.

Here, they specifically bring to bear the insights of the constructivist approach in

IR – insights which, alongside ‘materialist’ realist and systemic foci, are

introduced in the first chapter and also feature implicitly or explicity throughout

much of the text. This wider conceptual debate, and the question of regional

specificity versus universal rules in the study of International Relations, is then

finally taken up again in a second contribution by Hinnebusch, through a focus

on the struggle between regional identity and systemic structure in the Middle

East (taking his case material from across the whole region but also contrasting

the Jordanian case in particular – not represented among the country chapters –

with that of Syria).

We were fortunate in being able to also include an afterword by Sayyid

Badr bin Hamad Al Bu Said, Oman’s Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on

the diplomacy of small states. Based on a lecture delivered to Belgium’s Royal

Institute for International Affairs, on the occasion of the first formal Omani-

Belgian bilateral negotiations in September 2003 not long after the initial

version of our project was completed, this presents quite independently a

senior practitioner’s view of many of the issues at the heart of this volume. A

thoughtful contribution in its own right, both in general and with regard to

Oman’s foreign policy, it links with a number of academic debates in the field

of international relations, meshing rather strikingly with some of the insights

emerging from our project. At the same time, as a view by one well-placed

actor in the making and implementation of the very policies under

examination, it can serve as a valuable ‘primary source’, illustrating some

of the themes explored in the essays that follow.

NOTES

1. The most recent is Dimitris Xenakis and Dimitris Chryssochoou, The Emerging Euro-Mediterranean System (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).

2. The most recent of these is Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stubkjær, The European Union and theMiddle East (London/New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).

INTRODUCTION 5

Analyzing the Foreign Policies of

the Middle East and North Africa:

A Conceptual Framework

GERD NONNEMAN

INTRODUCTION

This chapter sets out a suggested framework for looking at Middle Eastern–

European relations from the perspective of MENA states’ foreign policies. This

adds an important dimension to the usual approach which views those relations

as part of a global ‘Mediterranean’ relationship and largely from the perspective

of European policy. An obvious lens through which to view one half of the

equation has been left strikingly underused, viz. Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA)

focusing on the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states

themselves – which would allow the South-to-North perspective to be placed in

its proper context.

This reflects a similar ‘Northern’ bias in the study of International Relations

and Foreign Policy Analysis more generally.1 It can also be explained partly by

the predominance of European interests in this academic equation; partly by the

relatively less developed Foreign Policy Analysis discipline in the MENA

region; and partly by the relative dearth of analytical work on Middle Eastern

foreign policies tout court. With the exception of a limited number of case

studies, and a few works on the Middle East’s position in the international

political economy, there was no recent systematic attempt to study Arab foreign

policies until the publication of the collective work directed by Korany and

Dessouki in 1984. This was followed only by a second edition of the same work

in 1991,2 and then another contribution on an aspect relating to foreign policy, in

the shape of the collective volume on national security in the Arab world edited

by Korany, Brynen and Dessouki (1993).3 Only very recently has there appeared

a comparable new contribution on Middle Eastern foreign policies in the shape

of an edited volume by Hinnebusch and Ehteshami.4

There is a need, then, to develop further the systematic comparative study of

Middle Eastern foreign policy(ies) in general, and an even more glaring need to

consider Euro-Middle Eastern (or rather, ‘Middle Eastern-European’) relations

through that prism. Only thus can one hope to arrive at a genuine understanding

of what underlies MENA states’ policy orientations and behavior towards

Europe, and therefore how they might develop in the future.

AN APPROACH TO FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS ROOTED IN A

COMPLEX MODEL OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

In viewing the relationship instead as one part of the MENA states’ overall

foreign policy orientation, this chapter argues for an approach to studying

MENA states’ foreign policy that is rooted in an eclectic ‘complex model of

international politics’. Explanations in Foreign Policy Analysis, it is argued,

must be multi-level and multi-causal, as well as contextual.

The analysis of any country’s foreign policy is necessarily rooted in a number

of assumptions. In explaining the dynamics of International Relations (IR), and

by extension in the analysis of foreign policy, Realist thinking has focused

largely on the ‘power’ impulse and has usually taken states as monolithic actors

rationally calculating costs and benefits in a power-balancing game, the rules of

which, in the ‘anarchic society’ of world politics, are presumed as given. For

neo-realists such as Waltz, it is the international system, rather than the state-

level desire for power in its own right, that should be the prime focus of analysis,

as its anarchic structure (with different varieties of polarity) drives states to

adopt the behavioural patterns of ‘power politics’, in order to ensure survival.

Although Waltz admits that changes in the international system itself may result

from structural factors within states, he has little or no interest in descending

below the system level.5

Other schools, more usually self-defined as part of the ‘Foreign Policy

Analysis’ (FPA) discipline, do delve into the inner workings of these states,

focusing on decision-making, the bureaucracy, and/or the elites and personalities

making policy. So-called ‘neotraditional realism’ from the late 1990s, too, re-

focused on the role of leaders’ perceptions and other state-level factors, while

retaining the structural insights of neorealism.6

A relatively recent contribution that stands out, as it conceptually links the

state and system levels, comes in the shape of the so-called ‘constructivist’

approach (with Wendt as its most prominent figure), which stresses cultural and

ideational factors as co-determining both state behaviour and the structure of the

international system. For state actors, in the constructivist conception, it is the

(socially constructed) meanings of facts and objects they encounter in their

domestic and external environments, that inspires their actions. Wendt argues

that the state and the structures in which it sits shape each other, as a result of a

web of ‘intersubjective understandings’. Or, as he puts it, ‘anarchy is what states

make of it’.7

But constructivism’s equal weighting of the domestic and the system level,

and of the ideational and the material (let alone the prioritising of the domestic

in the other FPA approaches briefly referred to) runs counter (as does straight

realism) to a final set of approaches: although structuralist/materialist like neo-

realism, this set is broadly Marxian-derived (even if not all its authors would

consider themselves Marxist). Here, as in neo-realism, states’ interaction and

foreign policy are seen as shaped largely by structures beyond the state level, but

particular emphasis is given to the persistent dominance of some states – those

of the ‘rich’, ‘developed’, ‘core’ – over a group of poorer, ‘peripheral’,

THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE MENA STATES 7

‘dependent’ ones, in a capitalist international political economy. In these latter

approaches, what transpires within states may be of relatively little importance,

nor are so-called ‘dependent’ actors (a category usually covering all developing

states, as well as, in some interpretations, ‘small’ states) usually seen as having

any significant autonomy. Some versions of dependency thinking, admittedly,

see developing states’ policy as constrained, rather than simply determined,

from without. It has also been suggested that there may be coincidence of

interests between elites in ‘periphery’ and ‘core,’ while there may be conflict

between the interests of elites and populations within the periphery. There is

certainly an element of such ‘coincidence’ in the case of several MENA elites,

who are linked to the ‘core’ economies through education, leisure, commercial

interest, and the revenues they derive from the sale of hydrocarbons or aid.

There is a potential conflict also between these elites and the nationalist and

Islamist aspirations of some of the population – necessitating a careful balance

in policy so as to maintain legitimacy. But this conflict should not be

exaggerated. It is true that at particular junctures of regional/domestic crisis it

may take on special significance (imagine for instance a further worsening of the

Palestine conflict combined with an uncertain aftermath of the war on Iraq and

economic downturn in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt). But such

popular aspirations are, taken separately, by no means supreme: they compete

for attention with other themes, and themselves fluctuate in importance. There

also is not the level of ‘comprador’ exploitation in the case of the Middle East

that inspired the analyses of some dependencia thinkers. Finally, partial

coincidence in such elite interests at a very general level, does not explain

specific variations in policy towards different outside actors. What this caveat

does already indicate, however, is the variations that particular kinds of

developing states may present on the usual patterns of explanation of foreign

policy (mainly related to developed states) – indeed the dependency school itself

of course focused on developing states.

In any case, it must be clear that reference to structures, even structures in

which states are seen as ‘dependent’, can never be sufficient on its own to

explain their foreign policy behavior. One would be left without explanation

for the sudden U-turn in policy of states following a domestic regime change

(such as in the case of Iran after the fall of the Shah), or policy changes that

occurred even without such a regime shift – as in the case of Egyptian

president Sadat’s sudden switch from pro-Soviet to pro-US policies in 1972.

Neither of these can be understood without taking into account a combination

of domestic forces and changes, regional linkages, and developments at the

international level, together with the role played by particular personalities and

their particular choices.

The assumptions that should guide any attempt to understand the foreign

policies of any state or group of states, then, would seem to be:8

1. The search for ‘power’ is indeed an important impetus for states and

regimes, as is that for ‘security’ – related but distinct, and in many cases the

object of the former.


2. There is, however, no single ‘national interest’ but a range of ‘national

interests’.

3. States are not monoliths but involve various groups and individuals, with

the concomitant variety of interests that may or may not be clothed as

‘national’.

4. Between interests and policy intervenes a decision-making process which

depends, inter alia, on the nature of the state, the administrative machinery

involved, the ‘bureaucratic politics’ within it,9 and the personalities and

perceptions of those involved.10

5. Foreign policy is often domestically oriented: indeed, the search for ‘power’

and ‘security’ may well in the first place be domestic (as argued by

Ayoob11).

6. The importance of decision-makers’ perceptions relates not only to such

material or political interests. Their perceptions of the nature of regional

and/or international policies, and of their own identity and role as well as

those of their state (and of how these may be related to transnational

identities), also feed into policy-making. Indeed, as the constructivist school

in IR holds, such perceptions, at a collective as well as individual level, are

likely themselves in turn to help shape the nature of the regional and inter-

national systems these states operate in.

7. States and decision makers do have to face objective external challenges

and opportunities, whether in their immediate environment or in the pattern

of global political and economic relations. These range from the more

specific and one-off – such as a military threat emerging next door after a

revolution – to broader, longer-term influences. The latter comprise the

‘structural’ context focused on by ‘structuralists’ – but such structures do

not determine outcomes, rather they constrain and enable.

In other words, my approach follows such diverse writers as Keohane,12

Gilpin,13 Snyder,14 and Siverson and Starr,15 in insisting on integrating domestic

political factors and dynamics into IR thinking – in essence opting for ‘complex

models of international politics’.16 Explanation, consequently, must inevitably

be multi-level and multi-causal. At the same time, it is difficult, at the very least,

to generalize about the precise effects of particular types of states and regimes

on foreign policy, in any one-dimensional way. Instead, ‘political effects [of

particular kinds of states and regimes] vary across different issues, situations,

and leaders’.17 Explanation, therefore, must incorporate contextuality. Hence the

crucial importance of empirical work, and of bringing area specialization and in-

depth case studies to the study of IR.

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPING STATES

The extent to which foreign policy determinants in ‘developing states’ differ

from those in other states varies widely from case to case – quite apart from the

difficulty in drawing sharp boundaries between the categories in the first place.

Apart from these states’ arguably ‘dependent’ position, the causes of their


divergence from the ‘developed’ pattern would include their relative lack of

resources (here the Gulf states are atypical), lower levels of state formation (and

hence legitimacy), and – in part linked with this latter point – their susceptibility

to trans-state identities and loyalties. Arguably, too, they will often find

themselves in relatively less stable regional environments.

Third World foreign policy studies have often overplayed some factors

deemed to differentiate the two groups, at the expense of others. Thus an over-

emphasis on the role of a leader’s personality can obscure the domestic and

external environmental determinants without which the foreign policy pattern

cannot be properly interpreted; at the other extreme, an excessive focus on a

country’s ‘structural’ position obscures variations in foreign policy that may

result from particular domestic configurations and policy choices.18

I suggested elsewhere19 that the most appropriate FPA approach for

developing states – including those of the MENA region – would be:

1. Start an interpretation from the domestic environment and the survival

imperative of regime and state.20

2. View this in the context of the regional environment and transnational

ideological factors.

3. Appreciate the overall limiting and enabling effects of the international

environment.

4. Take into account decision-making structures and decision makers’

perceptions, since particular policy choices are indeed capable of making

the sort of difference that cannot be explained by structural factors alone.

MENA STATES’ FOREIGN POLICY DETERMINANTS

The foreign policy ‘role’21 of MENA states (as that of many other developing

states), must be seen as defined through the lens of the leaderships’ perceptions

about the security of their regime, about the opportunities and challenges

presented by both their domestic and their external environments; and, to

varying extents, about their own identities. These various perceptions are, of

course, interlinked. Holsti has observed that regimes’ role conceptions, often in

part built on domestic political culture, can, over time, in turn ‘become a more

pervasive part of the political culture of a nation [and thus become] more likely

to set limits on perceived or politically feasible policy alternatives’.22 Yet it is

misleading to think of a single role: foreign policy roles are plural, depending on

the issue and the arena in question. They are also changeable: as Hill has pointed

out, ‘The ‘‘belief system’’ of the practitioner is a deep-rooted legacy of

experience and political culture, but it is also an organic set of attitudes which is

capable, within limits, of self-transformation’.23 While the foreign policies of

MENA states do show long-term patterns, one of them is precisely that they also

show the adaptability that this analysis suggests.

Explanations of the foreign policies of MENA states, as those of other states,

therefore, should avoid the conceptual extremes of both realism and Marxian/

dependencia structuralism, without at the same time falling into the trap of over-


privileging purely domestic factors. Instead the enquiry should be open to the

range of possible determinants that different schools in IR theory and Foreign

Policy Analysis have drawn attention to, and systematically address them. Key

questions that need to be addressed concern the relative importance of the

following factors:

. The domestic versus the external environment.

. Personalities/leaders versus environmental factors.

. Economic versus political interests.

. The role of the decision-making process versus other factors.

. Autonomy versus dependence (or the debate over ‘agency’ versus

‘structure’).

. The relative importance of the regional system(s), especially in terms of its

(their) transnational ideational/ideological/identity features. In the MENA

case the Arab and Islamic themes are especially pertinent factors at a

regional level. Contrasting approaches towards the MENA case are adopted

in this respect by Barnett,24 who insists on the persisting importance of the

theme of Arabism, and Walt,25 who paints a Realist picture of alliance

politics; Korany and Dessouki’s edited volume adopts an intermediate

position tending towards the Barnett end of the spectrum; a decade later (and

perhaps this explains the difference), Hinnebusch and Ehteshami edge away

from this, adopting an ‘adjusted realist’ approach.26

MENA states’ foreign policies, I suggest, have in varying ways been

determined by the needs of the regimes at home, the changing availability of

resources, and the international strategic and economic framework within

which these countries have played a subordinate but not necessarily powerless

role. They have also been influenced and circumscribed by the regional

ideological and political context (with especially Islamic and Arab themes),

both because this links into the domestic security imperative, and because it

has been a genuine element among the various role conceptions of at least

some of these leaderships.

MENA countries’ policies towards, and relations with, Europe should be

examined in this light. Clearly Europe’s presence on the northern shores of the

Mediterranean will, itself, be part of the explanatory mosaic, as will be European

policies. But the explanation should go beyond the assumption that the

relationship is determined simply by the ‘Mediterranean system’ – if indeed

such a system can be thought to exist. The EU and European states are, for

MENA states, merely one part of a much wider, and complex, external

environment determining foreign policy; by the same token, even the external

environment as a whole, with its regional and global components, must be joined

to the domestic environment if any credible explanation of foreign policy – and

therefore also of policy towards Europe – is to emerge.

The levels on which MENA states’ FP determinants must be examined,

therefore, are domestic, regional, and international. At the domestic level, the

key categories of determinants are:


1. The nature of the state (secure/insecure, extent of ‘national’ identity

consolidation; authoritarian/liberalizing, rentier/non-rentier).

2. The nature and interests of the regime.

3. Capabilities – in particular economic and technological as well as

demographic resources.

4. The decision-making system.

5. Decision-makers’ perceptions and role conception.

The central aim of the regime is likely to be its own consolidation and

survival, along with the two sets of aims that enable this: the acquisition of

resources, and the state- and nation-building exercise.

The regional level combines, on the one hand, these states’ immediate

strategic environment; and, on the other, the transnational ideological issues

of (pan-)Arabism and Islam. These latter issues retain some force as a

constraint on regimes’ FP behavior, and in some cases as a resource to be

deployed in the pursuit of the maintenance of a domestic or regional

constituency, against domestic, regional or international threats. But it is

suggested that their salience has diminished relative to interests defined within

the context of the territorial state, as states and associated identities have

become consolidated. Nevertheless, they may become more problematic in

times of crisis, not least because of popular pressure (e.g. over combined

crises in Iraq and Palestine).

The international environment presents a range of resources (economic,

military, political) as well as challenges and constraints (threats, dependence).

The composition of this environment will vary from state to state, depending,

among other things, on the state’s location. The increasing hold of the

‘globalizing’ trend in economics and politics also changes the environment

within which regimes have to make their domestic and foreign policy choices. It

is worth noting at this point that Europe, and particular European states, do have

particular importance in this international environment, because of:

1. Europe’s very proximity.

2. The former colonial or semi-colonial ties between many of the countries of

the region and European states, and their continuing impact.

3. Europe’s own position in the international system. I will return to this in the

following chapter.

The three levels – or three environments – that Middle Eastern states find

themselves in, need to be managed, or responded to, simultaneously. The ways

in which they do this will change over time, as the relative weight of the three

levels in shaping foreign policy may change along with changes taking place at

the state, regional and global levels.27 One should add to this a fourth possible

environment, or a ‘sub-environment’ within the regional system: that of their

immediate surroundings, for example the Gulf sub-system, the Maghreb, or the

Nile Valley. Here, too, transnational issues compete with ‘realist’ power

calculations.


The interrelated domestic and regional environments impose a host of

potential constraints, then, on the presumed raison d’etat calculations the realist

school would posit. Indeed, it makes the foreign policy calculations of Middle

Eastern regimes arguably more fraught than those of other states.

They are a good case study, therefore, of Steven David’s concept of

‘omnibalancing’ – which suggests that policy makers must balance between

internal and external pressures, in a decision context shaped by the main location

of threats and opportunities.28 In other words, policy makers not only balance

different elements (threats and opportunities) in the different parts of the

external environment (the traditional view), they also need to balance these with

the variable pressures at home. The precise ‘package’ that results will depend on

the importance and location of these threats and opportunities. This mirrors

Ikenberry’s view of the way in which states and the elites that staff them must

engage in a constant bargaining relationship with their societies, balancing this

with strategies to adjust to pressures and changes in the international

environment – with the particular choices made varying according to the

relative costs and benefits of these interrelated domestic and external strategies:

Adjustment may be directed outward at international regimes, or inward at

transforming domestic structures, or somewhere in between in order to

maintain existing relationships. Which strategy is chosen will depend in

large part on the gross structural circumstances within which the state

finds itself – defined in terms of state–society relations on the one hand,

and position within the international system on the other.29

Inherent in this analysis is that a strong, domestically secure leader will have

much greater room for manoeuvre in his external bargaining, than is likely to be

the case for a regime that is under serious pressure at home – an observation

directly relevant to the question of ‘relative autonomy’ which I deal with later.

The shifting relative importance of the three levels which was referred to

earlier, may, of course, mean that particular theoretical models may be more

appropriate for understanding the dynamics of particular periods. Thus,

Hinnebusch30 has suggested that Rosenau’s view of the most important

determinants of Third World foreign policies – the global level (including

military intervention), and the Leader – might be most appropriate for the early

post-independent period. The 1950s and 1960s, by contrast, arguably were a

period where the external factor became relatively less dominant given the Cold

War context, while the domestic scene became commensurably more important

– making David’s omnibalancing model especially relevant. During the 1970s

and 1980s, war became more pervasive in the region and the threat from

neighbors much more important; at the same time, states were beginning to

master the domestic environment. Consequently, here the Realist model might

become a better approximation of the dynamics observed (the exception would

be Iran, with its 1979 revolution, which would be comparable with the 1950s to

1960s period in the Arab world). Finally, Hinnebusch suggests, the 1990s might

be viewed as ushering in a new era, where decision makers are sandwiched


between much increased pressures from the global level, and growing pressures

domestically. In this new context, the hegemon’s ability to intervene militarily is

back on the agenda (possibly making it less likely that MENA states will opt for

military action), while economic asymmetry is perceived to be on the increase.

The combined effect of these factors, and attempts to resist them, may be one

explanation for a re-emergence of transnational ideology as a salient factor in

the politics of the region. At the same time, ‘bandwaggoning’, as opposed to

‘balancing’ by MENA states may become more likely.

While the jury is still out on the latter assessment, it is clear that, over the

period since the 1950s, the foreign policy orientation and behavior of MENA

states have increasingly focused on the pragmatic pursuit of regime and state

interests, rather than ideology, especially since the 1970s. This holds also for

supposed ‘rogue’ states such as Libya, Iraq and Iran (save for exceptional periods

such as the aftermath of revolution in the latter), and is especially clear in their

relations with Europe.31 These interests are essentially those of regime survival

and consolidation, and state consolidation, and the acquisition of the political and

economic means to ensure them. In this, the dynamics at work are reminiscent of

(albeit less extreme than) the foreign policy aims that Clapham attributes to the

‘monopoly states’ of Africa – with their negative (juridical) sovereignty, their

personalist rule, and their clientelist domestic and international relations.32

THE QUESTION OF (RELATIVE) AUTONOMY

A central question raised in the above debate concerns the extent to which

policies are determined by the ‘dependency’ of these ‘developing’ or ‘peripheral’

states on the ‘core’ or ‘hegemonic’ actors in the international political economy –

including on former colonial masters. The obverse of this question is what level of

autonomy MENA and other states of the South have, or can carve out – including

how and under what conditions they can do so. While recognizing that the answer

may vary – for instance due to the varying global/regional contexts as suggested

by Hinnebusch – I suggest that, overall, this potential for relative autonomy is

greater than dependency thinking has allowed for. Pragmatic adaptation to

changing circumstances in all three environments (domestic, regional, global)

and adjusting policy accordingly, will often be necessary if they are to be dealt

with effectively simultaneously. This need not mean that these states are

necessarily at the whim of greater powers. I have presented some evidence

elsewhere for the case of the Gulf states, showing that they have often been able to

carve out a very significant relative autonomy from the main ‘hegemon’ of the

day – the Ottoman Empire, Britain and the US.33 I would argue, moreover, that

this can be combined even by a very small and vulnerable state such as Qatar,

with simultaneous relative autonomy from its vastly larger regional would-be

hegemon, Saudi Arabia.34 While allowing for the fluctuations suggested by

Hinnebusch, I would interpret the available evidence as showing that states are

rarely totally without at least the potential for some such relative autonomy.

A different way of approaching this question is to ask whether they find

themselves forced to align their foreign policy with that of larger powers,


whether in the region or beyond: what patterns of alliance emerge. The

traditional assumption is that the smaller, weaker, and more ‘dependent’ a state

is, the smaller the chance that it can do anything but align with a major outside

power. Even here, it theoretically could, during the Cold War, choose between

two camps – although other domestic factors and agendas would often make the

choice almost inevitable. For the case of sub-Saharan Africa, Clapham has

shown that domestic insecurity and dearth of resources have combined there

with small size to predispose a state towards alignment, while only the larger

and domestically better established states and regimes had more of a chance to

opt for non-alignment, or for aligning with one power while cultivating links

with its rival, thus pre-empting any challenge from this rival through domestic or

regional opponents of the regime.35 A domestically secure leader, argues

Clapham, will have a freer choice between an alignment (bandwaggoning, or

clientelist) strategy, and a non-aligned, balancing strategy – both offering

benefits and disadvantages. By contrast, ‘[w]hen leaders faced appreciable

domestic threats, the demands of omnibalancing became considerably more

intricate, and their scope for independent action was correspondingly reduced’.36

The usual assumption is that the end of the Cold War has reduced that room

for maneuver. In fact, opportunities for pragmatic balancing and ‘polygamy’

persist – not least in the case of the MENA region, although I will argue that

here too, the factor of domestic strength is and remains important.

What is clear is that this balancing game may require gradual adaptation in

general foreign policy roles. In turn, such pragmatic adaptation both in role

conceptions andperformance requires a degree of autonomy from the domestic and

regional constraints already referred to. Indeed, while it is the very interlocking of

the different levels in their foreign policies that helps give regimes room for

maneuver, at the same time it is precisely by flexibly activating this degree of

autonomy at one or more levels relative to one or more other levels (domestic,

regional, international), that it can ultimately be maintained most securely.

The room for maneuver which adept local leaders may be able to turn into the

required relative autonomy at the three levels, emerges from the combination of

two sets of circumstances, domestic and external. The domestic factors are, in

essence, the availability of material and political resources. Material resources

come in many forms, including most prominently that of hydrocarbon riches.

With political resources I mean first and foremost the already established level

of political legitimacy for state and regime, alongside those tools that allow

further consolidation. Or as Hinnebusch and Ehteshami put it: ‘the higher the

level of state formation, the lower the level of constraints on the pursuit of

reason of state from international dependency and trans-state penetration’.37

The external circumstances include limitations on, and competition between,

great powers – a factor which will significantly fluctuate over time. Crucially,

they also include the global scattering of great power interests, as opposed to

local actors’ ability and propensity to concentrate on their immediate region –

often compensating to some extent for the absolute power differential.

Moreover, some states’ possession of a valued resource, whether in strategic

position, in oil, in wealth, or otherwise, may afford it some leverage with greater


powers. By contrast, the very insignificance of a state may mean that it does not

command the level of external powers’ attention and resources needed to

constrain its autonomy.38

Indeed, the question of the relative power and influence of ‘developed’ and

‘developing’ states needs to be considered not in overall absolute terms, but by

considering what, for the supposedly weaker party, is most relevant in terms of

its foreign policy aims. For most developing states, this is unlikely to be the

battle with the great powers. Even if in a direct trial of strength at the global

level, they would probably lose out, that sort of trial of strength is not where

their main attention is likely to be focused. Rather, they are likely to direct their

attention and energy towards the regional arena – in addition to those global

issues that directly affect their interests, such as negotiations over trade regimes

and, for the Gulf states, the world energy markets. Within their region there are

many dynamics over which outside powers have little or no control, and which

they cannot predict. In the case of the MENA states, a partial exception may be

policy on Israel. Even this, however, arguably is rarely the top concern for these

states, unless the domestic position of the regime is in question. Another

possible exception would be the Gulf arena, as here such vital interests for

outside powers are concentrated. In fact, the evidence shows that having such

interests does not equate with ability to direct things at will – indeed quite the

contrary: Turkey’s and Saudi Arabia’s refusal to give the US the assistance it

wanted in the Iraq operation of 2003 and, indeed, the Qatari government’s

refusal to rein in the satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera, are telling examples.

To sum up the argument: the international-level constellation of factors

referred to above (which will vary from period to period and from case to case)

provides the fluctuating room for maneuver within which the pragmatic multi-

level balancing game becomes possible. The long-term foreign policy patterns

of managed multi-dependence and pragmatism which I suggest can be observed

in a number of MENA states are a crucial part of this. Indeed, the pragmatic

adaptation in role conception and performance displayed by these regimes in

playing off outside powers against each other and avoiding ‘mono-dependence’,

is necessary to take advantage of this constellation of factors. Yet this in turn

will at times require a degree of regime autonomy from domestic and regional

ideological pressures or constraints. Such autonomy can be acquired through the

judicious use of resources available from outside powers and at home, and is

itself potentially reinforced as an outcome of the overall ‘game’. On the one

hand, as already suggested, a key domestic resource in this game is domestic

legitimacy; the further advanced the level of state formation, the easier it will be

to transcend regional constraints. On the other, successful deployment of the

omni-balancing strategy may ultimately help the process of state formation and

increase regime legitimacy. In other words, if this game is played successfully, it

may in turn lead to greater autonomy at all levels – not only international, but

also domestic and regional, creating a positive feedback loop.

None of this is to claim that such autonomy is anything but relative. Indeed,

while the states benefiting from the most helpful combination of the factors

above are in a position of asymmetrical interdependence rather than dependence


tout court, they remain vulnerable and the weaker part of the asymmetry.

Similarly, my conclusions about the predominance of pragmatism certainly do

not mean that transnational issues would lose their importance altogether as a

factor in foreign policy; yet it does mean that, against the background of state

consolidation and under the conditions outlined, their impact lessens relative to

other concerns, as merely one influence among many. While astute policy

making, as displayed for instance by the Gulf ruling families, has been important

in making the most of this potential virtuous circle, it seems plausible that the

underlying dynamic applies more generally to small states – indeed perhaps

even more so: most states face less powerful transnational ideological pressures

and constraints than do those of the Middle East.

In the following contribution, the specific domestic, regional, and interna-

tional environments that impact on MENA states’ foreign policy making, are

analyzed in greater detail, before offering some preliminary conclusions about

the defining features of MENA states’ foreign policies towards Europe.

NOTES

1. This was particularly so during the period of the Cold War. As Clapham puts it: ‘the dominantfocus was on the relationship between the superpowers, with a secondary but still importantemphasis on relations between other industrial states such as those of Western Europe. Even thestudy of ‘‘North–South’’ relations characteristically had a heavy emphasis on North–Southrelations, . . . rather than on South–North ones’. Christopher Clapham, Africa and theInternational System: the Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996), p. 3.

2. Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder:Westview, 1991 – 2nd edition).

3. Bahgat Korany et al., (eds.), The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World (London:Macmillan, 1993).

4. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of MiddleEastern States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002).

5. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1979).6. For the latter, see for instance John Vazquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical

Realism to Neotraditionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).7. Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what States Make of it: the Social Construction of Power

Politics’, International Organization, Vol. 46 (1992), no. 2, pp. 391 – 425.8. This list draws on an earlier version in Gerd Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations, 1902–

2001: a Pragmatic Quest for Relative Autonomy’, International Affairs, Vol. 77, no. 3 (July2001), pp. 631–61: at p. 633.

9. Graham Allison, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).10. Michael Brecher, Crisis Decision–Making: Israel 1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1980).11. Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder: Lynne Rienner); and see J.

Hagan, ‘Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy’, in Laura Neack etal. (eds.), Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in its Second Generation (EnglewoodCliffs: Prentice–Hall, 1995), pp. 117–44.

12. Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

13. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1981).

14. J. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1991).

15. R. Siverson and H. Starr, ‘Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances’, in AmericanJournal of Political Science, Vol. 38 (1994), pp. 145–61.


16. H. Muller and T. Risse–Kappen, ‘From the Outside In and from the Inside Out: InternationalRelations, Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy’, in D Skidmore and V Hudson (eds.), TheLimits of State Autonomy: Societal Groups and Foreign Policy Formulation (Boulder:Westview, 1993).

17. Joe Hagan, ‘Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy’, p. 120.18. Bahgat Korany, ‘Foreign Policy in the Third World: an Introduction’, in International Political

Science Review, Vol. 5 (1984), no. 1, pp. 7–20.19. Nonneman, ‘Saudi–European Relations, 1902–2001’.20. See for instance Bruce Moon, ‘The State in Foreign and Domestic Policy’, in Laura Neack et al.

(eds.), Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in its Second Generation, pp. 187–200.21. A term much used but variously defined in the literature. In essence, it is meant to be a state’s

characteristic patterns of behavior – whether seen as the result of the state’s position in a systemof balance of power (James Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990), or, as rightly observed by Holsti, as also driven by policy makers’ ownperceptions and definitions, and thus as much domestically as externally generated (K.J. Holsti,‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, in Stephen Walker (ed.) RoleTheory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke UP, 1987), pp. 5–43. For a good review seeLisbeth Aggestam, ‘Role Conceptions and the Politics of Identity in Foreign Policy’, ARENAWorking Papers 99/8, available on 5 http://www.arena.uio.no/ publications/wp99_8.htm4 .

22. K. Holsti, ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, in Stephen Walker (ed.)Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), pp. 5–43: atpp. 38–9.

23. Christopher Hill, ‘The Historical Background: Past and Present in British Foreign Policy’, inMichael Smith et al. (eds.), British Foreign Policy: Tradition, Change and Transformation(London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), pp. 25–49: at p. 30.

24. Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).25. Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).26. Korany and Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States; Hinnebusch and Ehteshami

(eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States.27. A point suggested by Raymond Hinnebusch, at the Workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle

Eastern and North African States’ Foreign Policies: With Special Reference to Their Relationswith Europe’, at the Third Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence andMontecatini Terme, March 20–24, 2002.

28. Steven David, ‘Explaining Third World Alignment’, in World Politics, Vol. 43, no. 2 (1991), pp.233–56.

29. John Ikenberry, ‘The State and Strategies of International Adjustment’, in World Politics, Vol.39 (1986), no. 1, pp. 53–77.

30. Discussion paper at Workshop on ‘The Determinants of Middle Eastern and North AfricanStates’ Foreign Policies: With Special Reference to Their Relations with Europe’, at the ThirdMediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme, March20–24, 2002. Subsequently elaborated also in the new chapter added to this book (pp. 243 – 256)(developed from his review article in the original version of this volume in the Special Issue ofReview of International Affairs (vol. 2, no. 3 (Winter 2003/04)).

31. This is notwithstanding the stress laid on the ideological factor in Moshaver’s contribution onIran, in this volume: indeed, in the final analysis, the ‘average’ of Iran’s policy output since thelate 1980s does in fact conform to the pattern I outline.

32. Clapham, Africa and the International System.33. Gerd Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in Gulf–British Relations’, in J. Kechichian (ed.),

Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 315–50.34. Gerd Nonneman, ‘The Autonomy of ‘‘Dependent’’ States: the Case of the Arab Gulf States’,

paper presented at the MESA Conference, San Francisco, Nov. 2001 (available from the MESA[Middle East Studies Association of North America] secretariat).

35. Clapham, Africa and the International System, p. 64 and passim.36. Ibid., p. 65.37. Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Introduction and Framework of Analysis’, in Hinnebusch and Ehteshami

(eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States, pp. 1–27.38. Morgenthau made a similar point with reference to the independence of small states:

Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1964 – 3rd ed.), p. 177, where he refersto ‘their lack of attractiveness for imperialistic aspirations’. Morgenthau also already recognizedthe factor of great power competition.


The Three Environments of Middle East

Foreign Policy Making and Relations with

Europe

GERD NONNEMAN

Given the framework for analysis presented in the previous chapter, which

proposed that MENA states’ foreign policy needs to be analyzed as shaped by

three inter-linked and interacting environments – domestic, regional and

international – this contribution takes a closer look at each of these specific

environments for the states and policy makers of the Middle East and North

Africa. At the domestic level, the evolving questions of state and regime

consolidation and legitimacy are central, with the related issues of political

economy and political development. At the regional level, the salient features,

with respect to foreign policy, of the Arab and Middle East region as a whole are

considered, before looking at each of the region’s component sub-regions: the

Gulf, the Mashreq, and the Maghreb. Attention is also drawn to the impact of

states’ immediate environment. Europe, and European policy towards the

region, are a key part of the external environment, straddling the regional and

international categories. The significance of this European factor is assessed, and

an outline given of the evolution of European policy towards the region. Finally,

a number of preliminary conclusions are offered about the defining features of

MENA states’ foreign policies towards Europe.

THE DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT

The central pursuit of most MENA regimes remains that of domestic survival –

and the search for legitimacy, acquiescence and control to assure this, in turn

supported by a search for resources to deploy in this domestic quest. The root of

these dynamics remains in the inadequate ‘stateness’ of many of the countries in

question, combined with a failure to ‘perform’ either politically or economic-

ally. After the bankruptcy of quasi-socialist experiments from the 1950s to the

early 1980s, there has been no real economic take-off under the half-hearted

economic reforms introduced since the mid-1980s (and since the 1970s in

Egypt). The oil revenues which aided the rich oil producers directly, and the rest

of the Middle East indirectly through aid and opportunities for migrant

employment, lost their luster even in the Gulf with the 1986 slump in prices that

badly affected the regional economy as a whole. Indeed, after the temporary

boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, came a decade in which the countries south

of the Mediterranean suffered the sharpest decline in real wealth (GNP per

capita) of any region in the developing world, amounting to some 2 percent per

year.1 At the political level, the prevailing pattern remained one of autocratic

rule – albeit with some variations. By and large, governments have reacted with

clamp-downs to the challenges posed by these economic difficulties (including

large-scale unemployment), even in places where there had been some evidence

of liberalization previously – such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.

It is interesting to note that it is in the monarchies of the Gulf that some

contrary dynamics appear to emerge: parliamentary politics remains as lively as

ever in Kuwait (though still constrained in its influence), while Qatar and

Bahrain appear to be moving in the same direction at the beginning of the

twenty-first century. Following the adoption of its new constitution, turning the

country into a Kingdom, Bahrain held the first elections for its new parliament in

October 2002 (although the elected lower chamber is balanced by an appointed

second chamber); the elections brought a respectable turn-out even though

boycotted by some, and were free and fair. The political reforms brought the

King and Crown Prince unprecedented popularity (and strengthened their

position relative to rival voices within the royal family). In Qatar, a new

constitution was approved by referendum in April 2003, stipulating a parliament

that will be two-thirds elected, one-third appointed, and that will have legislative

power; elections are expected in 2004. In both cases the move appeared to be a

conscious policy by the ruler to strengthen domestic legitimacy. In the case of

Qatar the announcement of the referendum coincided with the winding down of

the Qatar-based but domestically unpopular US–UK operation against Saddam’s

Iraq – a policy which the key decision makers felt was in Qatar’s best raison

d’etat interests given its immediate regional environment (not least Saudi

Arabia): in sum, a perfect example of omni-balancing, while also still

maintaining some distance from the US by contrary policies on other issues

(for example, al-Jazeera).2

Iran remains a case apart, with the most lively of parliamentary political

dynamics combined with a determined battle to contain it by the Supreme

Leader and the political conservatives.

There is no space here to delve deeply into the debates on democratization

and its problems in the Middle East. Yet very worthwhile work has been

undertaken in the past decade or so, in which it possible to discern an implicit

consensus on a number of points:3

1. The discourse of democracy and pluralism has become more widespread.

Yet Arab commentators have pointed out that while ta‘addudiya (which can

mean anything from multipartyism to pluralism) has become somewhat

more prevalent, dimuqratiyya is still some considerable way off.

2. It has been shown that there is no such thing as an overarching Arab–

Islamic political culture which might provide an explanation, and that

political behavior and attitudes are to a large extent adaptive to social

settings and shaped by political context.4 ‘The self-described Islamist


character of a movement tells us nothing useful about its behaviour unless

placed in the appropriate political and social context’.5

3. Different types of impulses towards liberalization can be identified – from

mass pressures (caused by changes in the implicit ‘social contract’ driven by

state failure, financial crisis, and the effects of globalization-induced

economic reform); to external pressures; and, thirdly, voluntary limited

reform from above. The latter type has been most in evidence, with regimes

taking pre-emptive action to maintain a constituency or create new ones.

The effects of regime change in Iraq will be multifarious and by no means

uni-directional.

4. The limitations to liberalization so visible in much of the MENA region are

explained in terms of two main structural factors. The first lies in the

dynamics of rentierism, where the state has a large degree of autonomy from

society by virtue of external revenue; it delivers ‘goods’ to the population,

demanding little in return except acquiescence. Yet, as recognized by one of

the concept’s most prominent advocates,6 the rentier dynamic proved to

have its limits: on the one hand, state resources were declining relative to

demands; on the other, it appeared that other factors could cut across the

presumed ‘no taxation, no representation’ implications. The second type of

structural explanation contradicts the optimistic assumption found in some

strands of democratization studies, that with economic liberalization comes

an expansion of the bourgeoisie, which in turn becomes an increasingly

significant pressure group for political liberalization. Work by Hinnebusch

and others showed that in many cases, the new bourgeoisie was created by,

and allied with, the state, and thus did not have an interest in any political

opening up beyond that which safeguarded their own economic position and

influence.7 Economically, domestic freedom to exploit opportunities is

welcomed, as is ability to import – but the threat of real international

competition that would result from lifting protection is not.8

Murphy presents a related and compelling argument, based in part on an in-

depth study of Tunisia, with implications for foreign policy.9 On the one hand,

internal economic weaknesses combine with the pressure of the international

political economy to undercut the regime’s existing tools to build legitimacy.

Two key tasks in which the state is seen as performing deficiently – and which

were central to the state–society bargain – are the role of provider and that of

defending the ‘Arab cause’. The falling away of these pillars of legitimacy,

combined with the painful effects of economic liberalization, force regimes to

adapt. At the same time, however, the corporatist structures in society and

politics upon which the system relied, are directly affected by economic

liberalization: the latter ‘reinforces horizontal stratification at the expense of the

vertically stratified interest group articulation which provides the political

structures of corporatism’. The tactical, limited political liberalization that may

be adopted as a policy response, tends to ‘become unstuck when the state is

forced to choose between its own survival and the emerging popular political

demands . . . [and] between limited political openings for its potential allies in

THE THREE ENVIRONMENTS OF MENA FOREIGN POLICY 21

economic reform . . ., and its desire to prevent challenges to its own

supremacy’.10

Clearly, this has implications for regime strategies of getting access to

resources from the external environment: on the one hand, they often need such

resources; on the other, the 1990s have also seen an increasing trend in political

conditionality being imposed on economic (or indeed wider) agreements. A

striking example, of course, is the Barcelona process. This inevitably means

further pressure to loosen the reins adding to the already existing pressure

coming from the economic liberalization agendas that form the other side of

such outside agreements. It is likely that regimes in such cases will at least

temporarily try to insulate themselves from the political consequences of these

pressures. This may take the form of stalling on the most sensitive ‘governance’

elements of such agreements (which would become visible in protracted or

stalled negotiations); shelving implementation of the domestic commitments

made in such agreements, or emasculating them in other ways; and possibly, an

eventual willingness to forego active pursuit of such resources where the

conditions are politically unpalatable. The case of Tunisian policy towards

Europe, for instance, would seem to include all three strategies.

Moreover, the economic liberalization strategy being urged on the southern

Mediterranean countries – not least in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean

Partnership initiative (EMP) – may itself be problematic. Several economists

and political economists working on the issue have recently argued that these

measures are likely to bring hardship.11 Indeed, ‘it may not be possible to fully

offset any decline in existing manufacturing production and employment by

attracting new investment’, as one economist puts it.12 In addition, trade

diversion may become larger than trade creation, and because tariffs still vary so

widely within the region, additional ‘shifting’ effects would be added to this.13

One of the most damning criticisms, perhaps, is that EMP is in any case not to be

a consistent application of the Washington consensus principles for the

developing world – both because geographically selective trade liberalization

may introduce welfare-reducing distortions and because EMP goes against the

key assumption that resources will be moved into agriculture.14 Indeed, the EU’s

southern ‘partners’ complain with justification that agriculture has been virtually

excluded from EMP, in order to protect Europe’s own agricultural sector.

As already suggested, there are, of course, considerable differences among

MENA states that mean the above cannot simply be applied across the board as

implying one undifferentiated dynamic. Some states, such as Egypt and

Morocco, have a stronger historical pedigree as political entities than the recent

constructions of, for instance, Iraq, Jordan, or Libya. In some, such as Jordan,

Kuwait, and today perhaps Qatar and Bahrain, the regimes have managed to

establish a certain level of legitimacy in part through astute inclusive policies

and the provision of outlets for grievances. Some, such as Jordan and Yemen,

suffer from extremely precarious economies – in contrast to, for instance, Qatar

and the United Arab Emirates with their small populations and large

hydrocarbon revenue sources. All of this tends to be reflected in greater or

lesser degrees of security – and ultimately levels of stateness. In turn this will


affect the basic ‘average’ dynamic described earlier and consequently its impact

on foreign policy. It can also affect foreign policy in other ways. For instance,

even within the group of oil producers different needs may lead to different

policies. Iran has relatively lower oil reserves and a very large population, and

will therefore be relatively less interested in the very-long-term future of the oil

market. Moreover, it faces higher immediate needs than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait

and the UAE, where the opposite applies. Iraq falls in between these two ends of

the spectrum, although its reconstruction and eventual rearmament needs (or

desires) nudged it towards a higher-price stance (a new, Western-friendly regime

might slant somewhat in the other direction, but this is not a foregone

conclusion).

Finally, a word on the decision-making structures. Clearly, they vary from

state to state, along with the particular make-up of the regime – a subject which

is the task of individual case studies rather than a general analysis such as this

one. With the exception of Lebanon and Iran, however, where the decision-

making picture is complex and conflicting domestic factions need to be satisfied

and are themselves involved, the general pattern is one of the total domination

by the very top of the executive – be it the figure of the ruler alone, or a very

small oligarchy (as, for instance, in the case of the senior princes of the Al-Saud,

or the Syrian leadership under Bashar al-Asad).

THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT

As indicated above, the ‘regional’ category in MENA states’ external

environment can itself be subdivided. First there is the widest, ‘Middle East’

system, which includes all the themes and complexities of ethnic and religious

rivalries, ‘Arabism’, and Islam, as well as the stresses caused by protracted

conflicts – most prominently the Palestinian issue. This category, of course, is

influenced by both the domestic and the international environment. Within this,

the largest sub-category is the ‘Arab system’. There are in addition a number of

recognizable sub-systems, with differentiating consequences for the foreign

policies of the states of the Middle East region, and all of them influenced by the

domestic, regional, and international environments. Finally one could also argue

that Europe itself also forms part of the ‘regional’ environment by virtue of its

proximity.

The Arab World and the Middle East

The ‘Arab system’ has become gradually less dominant as a policy determinant

since the 1970s. Pan-Arabism as an ideology has virtually vanished from the

scene. Arab themes in general no longer have the force they had between the

1940s and the use of the oil weapon in 1973. State and regime interests have

become predominant, in a context of interdependence both within the region and

with the world beyond it – even if this interdependence is skewed in favor of the

industrialized economies. Yet an Arab dimension persists. In part this is true

because of residual convictions among ruling elites, but probably more so

because many perceive the danger of ignoring what remains a potent, albeit no


longer the dominant, value among their populations.15 The Palestine question is

still an issue to be reckoned with in this respect. It also has its Islamic resonance,

focusing in particular on Jerusalem. This not only reinforces its relevance in the

Arab world, but extends it to non-Arab Iran (and the Islamic world at large).

Together, lingering memories of outside domination, grievances over Palestine

and the perception of the USA as Israel’s uncritical supporter, continue to fuel

the persistence of nationalist motifs in popular feelings. Consequently, close

collaboration with the USA retains elements of political risk. That is the main

reason why most Arab regimes sharply limited even their de facto collaboration

with the US–UK operation against Iraq in 2003, while adopting an anti-war

declaratory foreign policy.

Moreover, the relative eclipsing of Arab and Islamic ideological themes is not

necessarily irreversible. As Hinnebusch suggests,16 it is at least conceivable that

the combined increasing pressures on regimes from above (the attempted

assertion of US hegemony plus globalization/economic liberalization) and

below (due to government failure and economic liberalization, together with

restiveness over Western and regime policy in the region), could result in a

return to greater prominence of regional themes. But this would most likely be a

shift in degree rather than in kind, could itself prove temporary, and would not

affect all of the region equally. Regimes’ omni-balancing strategies are both an

illustration of, and further reinforce, a trend that reduces the salience of such

transnational themes relative to others in determining foreign policy, leaving

them as just one influence among many.

The Middle East system also contains straightforward strategic features, quite

separate from Arab or Islamic values. One of these is Israel’s regional

superpower status and nuclear capability, which remain a central concern. It is at

least part of the reason for feelings of insecurity on the part of other states and

attempts to ameliorate this. By the same token, one may note that Israeli

objections to other states’ acquisitions of sophisticated weaponry have long

bedeviled US–Gulf relations, for instance, hence giving opportunities to

European competitors.17 The other factor consists of the implications of the

rich–poor divide in the region – with the Gulf states, and the GCC in particular,

falling in the rich camp. This has long been a source of potential insecurity for

the latter, again feeding into their foreign policies towards the Middle East, the

Muslim world, and potential protectors elsewhere.

The region also features a number of sub-regional environments, or ‘systems’,

viz. the Gulf, the Eastern Arab world, the Western Arab world and the Arab–

Israeli theatre. The latter can also be seen both as part of general Middle Eastern

environment already discussed, and as a sub-set of the Mashreq dynamics.

The Gulf

The dynamics of regional relations in the Gulf since the 1970s have been driven

mainly by four factors:18

1. Ideological clashes.

2. Differential attitudes to outside powers.


3. National security interests/raison d’etat – in economic, military security,

and territorial terms.

4. The interests of rulers/ruling families (including dynastic rivalries).

For the GCC states in particular, the two key driving concerns in their regional

foreign policy have been external and domestic security. For the former, three

means have been pursued: external protectors; collective security within the

GCC; and the ‘management’ of regional relations through cautious diplomacy

(including ‘riyal-politik’). The maintenance of domestic security has meant the

need to keep revenues flowing; to avoid being seen as totally dependent; and to

collaborate in the GCC. Moreover, in contrast to the smaller Gulf states, Saudi

Arabia has also seen itself as rightfully dominant on the Arabian peninsula.

The sub-system of the Gulf has featured several types of clashes. The most

obvious ones have been the ideological ones between Arab-nationalist, secular

republican Iraq, revolutionary-Islamic republican Iran, and the neo-traditionalist

conservative pro-Western GCC monarchies. It goes without saying that this

forms a large part of the explanation for the monarchies’ continued desire for

outside protection. It also helps explain the support Western powers gave Iraq

during the 1980s against the perceived threat emanating from Iran’s revolution.

Yet by the 1990s, Iran had matured into essentially a status-quo power and was

increasingly being perceived as such, even if concerns about radical factions

(and, for the UAE, about territorial claims) remained.19 Instead, a common

concern and wariness about Iraq united Iran and most of the GCC states – and

arguably helped bring Iran closer to the West as well.

The issue of Palestine continues to link non-Arab Iran with the Arab world.

Genuine concern with the asymmetrical nature of the Israeli–Palestinian peace

process is reflected in Iran’s foreign policy stances. Although these perceptions

are no longer translated in official support for the eradication of the Jewish State,

Iran (and not merely that country’s ‘conservative’ factions) still reserves the

right to disagree with the nature of the process, outside pressure notwithstand-

ing. This, just like the whole question of outside involvement in the first place,

ties in to the nationalist reflex. Tehran has also reserved the right to support, for

instance, Hizbullah, as a Lebanese movement resisting foreign occupation.

Iranians reasonably argue this is quite different from ‘sponsoring terrorism’. In

contrast to the US and Israel, European governments have generally recognized

this distinction, which in turn has facilitated Iranian relations with Europe (even

if there remain concerns over actions by radical factions in Iran, and over WMD

questions).

Yet clearly, such trans-national causes and ideological differences have been

only one factor in Gulf tensions, as plain geostrategic and economic interests

were also at stake. With the gradual disappearance of the ideological causes of

threat in the region (Iraq’s since the mid-1970s, and Iran since the mid-1980s),

the remaining potential causes for clashes in the Gulf include:

1. Attitudes to outside powers (with the GCC states on one side of the fence,

Iran on the other, and Iraq as yet undetermined).


2. Hegemonic clashes between Iran versus Iraq versus Saudi Arabia.

3. Economic policy, given the different interests of the various states.

4. The question of access to the sea, between Iraq and Kuwait.

5. Other boundary and dynastic disputes – although these are now being

contained, the most problematic issue being the Iran–UAE dispute over Abu

Musa and the Tunbs.

The first of these needs little further comment, except to note the modest gradual

readjustment in Saudi security policy from 2001, towards a less visible reliance

on the US presence and greater cooperation with Iran. This will only be

reinforced following the Iraq war of 2003. As regards the second point, both Iran

and Iraq have traditionally viewed themselves as meriting a leading role in the

region. Saudi Arabia has, pragmatically, not aimed to eclipse either of the two,

but has rather played a balancing game whenever possible. With regard to the

smaller Arab Gulf states and Yemen, however, the Saudi leadership maintained

a hegemonic ambition.

It is worth noting, finally, the growing influence of non-Gulf powers in the

expanding Middle East on the Gulf states themselves. Turkey and Syria present

threats and opportunities for Iraq and Iran, while Iran faces a range of potential

threats along its Northern and Eastern borders. In turn, such factors inevitably

influence perceptions in the Gulf, and beyond.

The Mashreq, or Eastern Arab World

The Mashreq presents a complex foreign policy environment because of its

direct and close inter-linkage with those of the Gulf (Iraq, Iran, aid) and the

Arab–Israeli theatre, and the domestic effects which both have had in Mashreq

states, combined with the ideological and historical rivalries that have long riven

it. This sub-region is also, through Syria, Iraq and Israel, linked to Turkey and

that country’s domestic politics (regarding secularism and the Kurdish issue)

and foreign policies (with regard to water, NATO and the EU in particular). A

subset of this environment comprises the Israel–frontline states encounter: the

local expression of the wider regional Arab–Israeli theme. These states, albeit in

varying ways and employing different ideological frameworks and ‘patrons’,

inevitably always needed to devote a significant amount of attention and

resources to this theatre, balancing the Israeli threat with the resources available

from the Arab world on the one hand and the international environment on the

other, and with the pressures from their domestic audience. Indeed, for the

Mashreq as a whole, it is clear that the theme of Arabism has been significantly

stronger than in either the Maghreb or the Gulf.

The Maghreb, or Western Arab World

Factors characterizing the Maghreb sub-region include the Algerian domestic

troubles and their spill-over effects; the partial exclusion of Libya from outside

powers’ relations with the region (Libya remains outside the Barcelona

framework at the time of writing, for instance); the proximity of Europe, and

a European colonial past; and these countries’ borderline and interaction with


black Africa. They share a common history of attempts at North African unity,

culminating in the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU or, in its French

acronym, UMA). Sharp disagreement over the Western Sahara between

Morocco on the one hand and Tunisia and Algeria on the other continues to

obstruct the effectiveness of such attempts. As Joffe has observed, the fate of

moves towards regional integration in North Africa has also depended to a

significant extent on the region’s relations with Europe.20 Indeed, the very

dependence of these countries’ economies on the link with Europe, alongside the

European policy of fostering integration in North Africa since the start of the

1990s – but at Europe’s own pace and in accordance with European choices

(witness the exclusion of Libya) – did have a huge impact on the regional

politics and economics of the Western Arab world. Indeed, contrary to the

Mashreq and the Gulf, it has been Europe, not the US, that has been the

dominant outside power here: Washington has evinced much less interest –

although it is conceivable that energy concerns might yet change this.21

The Immediate Environment

As will already have become clear from some of the above, much of the foreign

policy calculations of MENA states’ regimes derive simply from their

immediate environment, quite apart from wider regional or subregional factors

– even if the latter often influence the former, and vice versa. Yemen’s

relationship with Saudi Arabia has long been one of mutual suspicion and

rivalry, mixed with Yemen’s economic need for aid from, and labor markets in,

its large neighbor: part of the country’s, and the regime’s, general need for

access to resources. Yemen’s relationship with the GCC as a whole and its

attempts to gain a closer association with the grouping is similarly predicated on

Yemeni economic needs, but suffers from lingering resentment over Yemen’s

position during the Gulf war, and, more fundamentally, from the country’s very

poverty, the state’s incomplete political control and its size as a potential threat.

In turn, the five small GCC states’ foreign relations are shaped to a significant

extent by their proximity to their vastly larger and more powerful Saudi

neighbor – bringing a mix of opportunities and constraints (the latter in turn

giving rise to strategies to overcome them, by looking beyond the Gulf: Qatar is

perhaps the prime example).

Iraq’s and Iran’s strategic rivalry looms large in both countries’ foreign policy

calculations. Iraq (regardless of regime change) also has a specific concern over

the water link with Turkey, as does Syria. Damascus, moreover, has two other

immediate environmental concerns (apart from that of Israel): the persistent

rivalry with Iraq and the historical–nationalist theme of Lebanon. By the same

token, Lebanese foreign policy cannot be understood without taking into

account the large influence of the Syrian factor.

Egypt’s particular local environment encompasses the Nile valley and

attendant questions, as well as relations with its troubled southern neighbor,

Sudan. For Libya, the presence of large and influential Egypt – long the heart of

Arabism – next door, has long had a particular influence. In addition, Libyan oil

wealth and its small population offered a natural market for Egyptian migrant


labor. For Tunisia, the presence of turbulent Algeria on one side, and maverick

Libya on the other, has inevitably posed major concerns. And for Morocco, a

similar concern over Algeria has been combined with the local dispute over the

Spanish Sahara (which also became one of the obstacles to North African

integration).

THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The end of the Cold War remains a watershed also for the foreign policy

environment of the MENA states. Prior to this, states in the region (as elsewhere

in the developing world) had the option of aligning with either of the two

superpowers, or balancing between the two – as indeed many did. The usual

assumption is that the falling away of the Soviet Union, leaving a single

superpower dominant in world politics, has meant a concomitant reduction in

states’ ability to maneuver. I have already argued that this fails to acknowledge

the various other mechanisms through which states can carve out a measure of

autonomy. Moreover, the disappearance of the Soviet Union did not mean there

were not other significant actors to be turned to, or resources to be had, for

regimes that cared to look. The evidence is that, while there was indeed a

reassessment of their options, leading to a partial Syrian alignment with the

West in the 1990–91 Gulf War, for instance, this re-ordering of foreign policy

patterns was neither universal nor permanent. Nor was the US always able or

willing to enforce compliance where it was not forthcoming. September 11,

2001, did put further pressure on foreign policy elites in the region and beyond,

but again subsequent developments showed that regimes were, once more,

omnibalancing – leading, for instance, to considerable friction in the Saudi–US

relationship. States resisting forced compliance with US policy preferences

could also derive succor from the existence of other poles of influence in the

world system – including Russia, China, India, and Europe – and of other

sources of aid, trade and military supplies. The fate of the Iraqi regime of

Saddam Hussein is sui generis: the combination of factors which caused and

enabled massive military action here in 2003, is not present for any of the other

states – even if some in the neo-conservative camp in the US might wish it

otherwise.

Indeed, it can be argued that the disappearance of bi-polar clarity in world

politics brought a less predictable pattern which in some ways increased states’

options.

Nevertheless, one major source of balancing did disappear. Equally

importantly, perhaps, was the change in international assumptions on

governance and good economic management that coincided with the end of

the Cold War, and the increasing hold of ‘globalization’. ‘Good governance’

became the new hegemonic discourse both of the West and international

organizations. At the same time principles of economic restructuring and

liberalization became increasingly forcefully propagated. Combined with the

declining economies and domestic resources of the vast majority of the MENA

regimes, and their consequent need for aid and full integration in the world


trading system via membership of the WTO, this has meant that they have come

under increasing pressure to adjust at home (see above). In turn, the combination

of these external and internal pressures may be reflected in adjustments in

foreign policy, if regime legitimacy is at stake.

It is also undeniable that changes at the global level have influenced

developments within the region and its sub-regions. Without such changes, the

course of the Iran–Iraq war might have been somewhat different and the Kuwait

crisis might not have occurred. When it did, its outcome would certainly have

been different. Nor is it likely that without the combined effects of these

developments, alongside the internal dynamics of the intifada in Palestine, there

would have been a ‘peace process’, however flawed, that in its turn drastically

affected the policy options of regional states. Similarly, the combined effects of

the election of George W. Bush as US President, and September 11, leading to a

different US policy stance in general and to the military overthrow of Saddam

Hussein in particular, brought both new strains to MENA governments (US

pressure in one direction, domestic and regional pressures in another), as well as

offering some opportunities – even if the question of whether or how to make

use of such opportunities needed careful weighing up against the multi-level

balance of other threats and resources.

EUROPE

Europe, and particular European states, have particular importance in this

external environment of the MENA states. It straddles, and interacts with, their

‘regional’ and ‘international’ environments. One reason is its very proximity and

thus the inevitably close interaction at the economic, security and political

levels, both in substance and in (mutual) perception. A second is the former

colonial or semi-colonial ties between many of the countries of the region and

European states – mainly Britain and France, and to a lesser extent Italy. While

such ties have in some cases left a strong nationalist reflex, they also left a

legacy of personal, linguistic and economic links that continue to play a role

today. A third reason is Europe’s own position in the international system, as a

set of relatively important actors in their (and to a lesser extent, its) own right

and both ally and rival to the one remaining superpower.

The Europe–US–MENA Triangle

US–European relations have a significant impact on the region and its foreign

policy options and choices. Europe does, on the one hand, provide an alternative

– one that has been vigorously pursued by many MENA states. This ties in with

the divergence in interests between Europe and the US in different parts of the

Middle East. On the other, it, or some of its Member States, have also retained

their close security relationship with Washington, which in turn impacts on their

policy towards the Middle East. By the same token, European influence has on

occasions had an effect on US policy output. It is important to note, also, that the

respective impact of the US and Europe varies depending on the particular sub-

region involved. As Aliboni has put it, on the one hand there is ‘the Mashreq,


where the US is strongly committed both politically and militarily, with the EU

playing only a secondary role in the economic field; on the other, the Maghreb,

where the EU is the dominant, if not sole, actor’.22 In other words, when

assessing the impact of the international environment on the foreign policies of

MENA states, it is essential to differentiate sharply within the overall MENA

category: the relevant external environment varies very significantly not only at

the immediate and sub-regional level, but at the international level as well.

A number of further sets of observations can be made with specific reference

to the European aspect of the MENA states’ external environment. The first

relates to the contrasts and tensions between the southern and northern shores of

the Mediterranean; the second to the economic links, based on proximity and

colonial history; and the third to the evolving European Mediterranean and

Middle East policy.

Contrasts and Tensions

Historical and cultural tensions are perhaps the most commonly commented

upon, having developed a mythological quality all their own quite apart from the

underlying facts. Their current impact can only be understood, however, in the

context of specific modern political and economic tensions. The political

category comprises domestic as well as regional issues in the MENA region.

Domestic, in that Europe (in particular France and Britain) are often perceived

locally as helping to shore up regimes of dubious legitimacy (quite apart from

the role they played in bringing these regimes into being in the first place).

Regional, in the conflation of the memory of colonial or imperial domination

with the contemporary issues of Palestine and Iraq. Here the picture is complex,

however, with Britain being singled out for criticism over its support for US

policy on Iraq and contrasted against other European states, and with Europe

generally being positively contrasted with the USA.

The economic tension inherent in the Mediterranean space comes in the

obvious form of the huge disparity in wealth between the northern and

southern shores, and the opposite direction in which they have seen their

economic fortunes move since the mid-1980s. As has been observed

elsewhere, ‘such a widening gap causes dramatic structural instability in

Europe’s international system, while projecting images of instability to the

rest of the world’.23 By the same token, it helps shape the foreign policies of

states on both sides. It must be recognized, of course, that these tensions are

yet again anything but uniform across the MENA region, given the huge

disparities with that region itself, setting apart the rich oil producing states

from the rest.

Finally, the structural political difference between MENA and Europe must be

stressed as a factor in relations past, present and future: as shown in the above

section on the Domestic Environment, the ‘actors’ on the northern and southern

sides are fundamentally different, even if both wear the label ‘state’. Although in

European states too, foreign policy is to a large extent the domain of the

executive, this executive can be considered to be a reasonably true

representative of the society; there is, in other words, some sense in which


the ‘state’ as a whole can be seen to be engaged (although the caveats listed in

the previous contribution (p. 120) must still be borne in mind). By contrast, the

MENA ‘state’ that engages in foreign policy and relations with Europe is, for

most purposes, the regime. That is not, of course, to say that only the regimes are

significant in foreign relations (as opposed to policy): one example of this would

be the migration pressures from the south.

Links

The importance of Europe’s colonial and imperial involvement in the region can

hardly be overstated. Virtually all of the MENA states came under the direct or

indirect rule of European powers and in many cases were in fact created by

them. Leaving aside Turkey, the main exceptions are Saudi Arabia and North

Yemen – but here too the influence of Britain in particular was strongly felt and,

in the Saudi case, effectively used by the local regime. This history has led to

persisting linkages in a number of ways, mirroring the experience of former

colonies in other parts of the world. At an elite level, a pattern of personal,

educational, and social connections emerged that in many cases persists today.

Politically, in those states where these elites remained in power, strong links

with the former metropolitan power have been maintained – as evidenced by

British relations with the monarchical Gulf states.24 Even where nationalist

struggles had swept away the former colonizer, the regimes that ended up

running the state have retained strong connections – witness relations between

France on the one hand, and Algeria and Tunisia on the other (this again mirrors

the situation elsewhere, for instance in the former colonies of sub-Saharan

Africa, including those where nationalist leaders took over at independence). A

particular case is that of Lebanon, where there had long been a Christian

population that looked to Europe. Following the French construction of ‘Greater

Lebanon’, and the consequent complication of the domestic confessional make-

up of that country, the European outlook of part of the population and the elite

has continued to play a role in the Lebanese foreign policy role, in an uneasy

compromise with the Arab orientation of the majority.

The economic links between MENA and Europe are self-evident if varied. For

MENA states, Europe offers actual and potential markets (for oil, gas and

petrochemicals in the case of the oil producers, and mainly for textiles and

agricultural produce for the remainder) and, in the case of North Africa, labor

markets. Viewed from the European side, it is the secure supply of predictably

priced energy resources – mainly from Algeria, Libya and the Gulf – that is the

key economic concern, along with access to the markets of the Gulf. Europe’s

dependence on MENA energy exports (running at about 30 percent) is in itself a

potential resource for the MENA exporters, either passive or active – although

its active deployment has been shown to be highly problematic.

European Policy

The evolution of European policy towards the Middle East and North Africa up

to 2000 has been adequately covered in a few recent studies, and there is a

somewhat more extensive literature on the overlapping subject of Europe’s


‘Mediterranean policy’.25 Here, an interpretive survey and update is offered.

Europe’s relations with the MENA region fall into five categories:

1. Early bilateral agreements between the EC and individual MENA states.

2. The multilateral Euro-Arab relationship through the Euro–Arab Dialogue

since 1973.

3. The ‘multi-bilateral’ relations in the context of a series of Mediterranean

policy frameworks since 1972.

4. The more recent EU-to-subregion agreements, since the late 1980s.

5. Subgroup-to-subgroup relations such as the ‘Five-plus-Five’ cooperation

among the states of the western Mediterranean.

Early Bilateral Agreements

The EC’s formal relations with the MENA region started out with a number of

bilateral agreements, beginning with preferential trade agreements with Lebanon

and Israel in 1964, followed by an early form of association agreements with

Morocco and Tunisia in 1969 and a trade agreement with Egypt in 1972. At this

time, the European intention was increasingly aimed at developing a region-

wide network of bilateral agreements. This would soon be followed up also in

the Euro-Arab Dialogue and the development of the early Mediterranean policy.

In parallel with those new directions, it also led to ‘cooperation agreements’

with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in 1976, and Egypt, Jordan, Syria and

Lebanon in 1977 and 1978. These included trade preferences as well as aid

(financial protocols) that were renewed every five years. The motivation for

these agreements was essentially economic and cannot simply be explained by

the 1973–74 oil crisis: they had after all, begun before. It is worth noting that the

EC for political reasons excluded Syria from the third and fourth of these

protocols.26 The evolution of the Mediterranean policy would eventually attempt

to bring all these bilateral agreements within a common framework.

The Euro-Arab Dialogue

Initiated in 1973, in the context of the Yom Kippur war and its aftermath, and

formalized from 31 July 1974, the Euro-Arab Dialogue27 suffered from the

outset from the basic fact that the two sides had ‘fundamentally different

perceptions of the nature and purpose of the dialogue’:28 The Arab side wished it

to be primarily political, the Europeans economic and technical. A working

compromise led to the highest-level meetings being mainly concerned with the

political aspects (including the Arab–Israeli theatre) and the specialist working

groups with technical and economic matters.29 The EC made a major move on

the Palestine issue in the form of the Venice declaration of 1980, which, issued

in reaction to the Camp David agreements of 1979, codified existing policies and

became the basis for European policy ever since: insisting on a comprehensive

solution, the return of occupied land, the ending of settlement, and the need to

refrain from changing the status of Jerusalem. Yet the subsequent deterioration

in the Palestine question, and the related labeling of Syria and Libya as ‘terrorist

states’, virtually paralyzed the political dialogue and thus, in effect, scuppered


any real overall Euro-Arab Dialogue. Arguably, the failed Athens summit of

1989 sounded the Dialogue’s death knell.30

The ‘Multi-Bilateral’ Mediterranean Policies

From 1972, the series of bilateral agreements between the EC and the southern

Mediterranean countries began to be turned into a ‘Global Mediterranean

Policy’. This ‘overall’ policy rather masked the contrast between the agreements

offered to the northern Mediterranean non-EC countries (Spain, Greece,

Portugal), Israel and Turkey, and those in the South: agreements with the

former were significantly more far-reaching in the envisaged level of economic

cooperation and free trade. Also, agreements with the southern Mediterranean

states were ‘still . . . more to do with the idea of development aid than with trade

in the proper sense’, the new collective-bilateral approach being in some way a

reflection of the EC’s Lome agreements with the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and

Pacific) countries.31 After the political crisis of 1973 when the Arab states told

the Community that they wanted to end all cooperation, the existing agreements

had to be re-negotiated; it was, of course, also the trigger for the institution of

the Euro-Arab Dialogue. By 1977, new trade and financial agreements were

reached with the Maghreb and Mashreq countries. While financial flows were

increased, and small, incremental advances were made in opening the EC’s

market in terms of tariffs, at the same time the looming accession of Greece,

Spain and Portugal led to protectionist constraints on agricultural imports being

put in place, in the form of various non-tariff barriers. This would remain a

source of frustration for the southern Mediterranean ‘partners’.

Until the end of the 1980s, the Global Mediterranean Policy remained little

more than a haphazardly coordinated set of bilateral agreements on trade

concessions and financial cooperation – the only common threads being that

they comprised a framework for the EC’s relationships with those Mediterra-

nean states not eligible for EC membership, and the common (but largely unmet)

demand by these states for a stronger political dialogue.

Awareness on both sides of the various shortcomings combined with the

changing international environment to lead to the institution of a ‘Renewed

Mediterranean Policy’ (RMP) in December 1990.32 This continued the system

of bilateral agreements and financial protocols (the third of which was about to

expire), but brought, first, a significant increase in the funds allocated to over

five billion ECU over its first five-year period (1992–96); and second, for the

first time specifically allocated funds for regional projects, thus aiming at

fostering regional integration within parts of the MENA region (‘horizontal

funding’). Other significant features were a greater emphasis on environmental

issues, improved market access for agricultural produce from the southern

Mediterranean countries, and the establishment of a fund for compensation of

the painful effects of economic adjustment programs in the region.

Within the RMP, the Community also began to explore sub-regional

cooperation arrangements more actively. The idea of fostering sub-regional

integration in the MENA region, and cooperating with such sub-regional

groupings, had been raised in 1990, in part in recognition of the failure of the


more broad-based attempts until then. Indeed, the Commission found that the

southern Mediterranean states had ‘not made any use of the regional facility

available through the financial protocols for the 1986–91 period and, as a result,

not a single project involving two or more countries of the region has been

financed by the Community’.33 As part of this new impetus, the Commission’s

Directorate for External Relations commissioned an independent study group

report in 1991, which focused on the related issues of stability, economic

development and regional and sub-regional integration in the MENA region, and

the implications for EC policy.34 The report chimed with, and highlighted the

possibilities of, the incipient EC sub-regional focus (while stressing the

importance of still maintaining an overall focus alongside it). The new line was

reflected in, among other things, a new approach towards the Maghreb, with the

new Euro-Maghreb Document being agreed at the June 1992 Lisbon summit,

and the Maghreb being agreed on as an ‘area of common interest’ under the

EU’s new Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Yet the possibility of

extending the new framework beyond the Maghreb was held out. Such extension

became more plausible with the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israel and the

PLO, the EU’s involvement in the subsequent peace process, and the detente in

Arab–Israeli relations that followed: a global Mediterranean framework now

seemed somewhat more feasible.35

This new trend in turn led to the holding of the Euro-Mediterranean

Conference in Barcelona in November 1995, which ushered in the ‘Barcelona

Process’, and its Euro-Mediterranean Partnership initiative (EMP). In the

underlying Commission paper, the rationale was clearly set out. Peace and

stability in the region was recognized as of ‘the highest priority’ for Europe, and

the key means to achieve this were:

. To support political reform, respect for human rights and freedom of

expression as a means to contain extremism.

. To promote economic reform, leading to sustained growth and improved

living standards, a consequent diminution of violence and an easing of

migratory pressures.36

By this stage, the Maghreb had been joined by the Eastern Mediterranean as an

‘area of joint action’ for the EU. It seemed to make sense, therefore, to consider

a common EU policy towards the Mediterranean as a whole. The EMP claimed

to establish a comprehensive partnership among the participants, involving three

‘baskets’: a strengthened political dialogue; improved economic and financial

cooperation; and a more extensive and intensive socio-cultural basket.37 Yet the

process remained troubled by several factors: Libya’s exclusion, thus

complicating integration efforts even within the Maghreb; the continuation of

the ‘multi-bilateral’ nature of the framework, in effect (at least in trade) working

against rather than in favor of MENA integration; the continuing reluctance of

the EU genuinely to open its markets to textiles and agricultural produce in

particular;38 the persisting vagueness over the implementation of the political

basket, in particular over the papered-over democratic deficit in the MENA


region; and the worsening of the Arab–Israeli conflict since the accession of

Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996 (only partially alleviated by the Barak

interregnum, which was followed by a seemingly terminal downward spiral

under Ariel Sharon’s stewardship in Israel since 2001). In addition, there were

the MENA regimes’ fears, already indicated above, of the domestic political and

economic implications of the reforms envisaged in the EMP principles.

European attention for some of these difficulties was heightened in the

aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War, not least in the context of the ‘war on

terrorism’. At the same time, the EU itself was entering a new era, with the

expansion from 15 to 25 members, and the changes in political geography this

brought with it: extending its borders to Russia in the East, bringing two of the

three non-Arab EMP partner countries into the EU itself (Malta and Cyprus),

while Turkey’s entry seemed to inch closer. These developments brought a

number of policy responses from the EU, three of which are of particular

relevance for our discussion.

The first was the adoption of a ‘New Neighbourhood Policy’, or the ‘Wider

Europe’ policy framework, first introduced in a communication from the

Commission in March 2003. This aimed

to develop a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood – a ‘ring of

friends’ – . . . In return for concrete progress demonstrating shared values

and effective implementation of political, economic and institutional

reforms, . . . [these countries] should be offered the prospect of a stake in

the EU’s internal market and further integration and liberalisation to

promote the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital.

The Commission document explicitly recommended consideration of how the

EU ‘could incorporate Libya into the neighbourhood policy’. Yet it still left the

Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula outside its remit.39

The European Council of Thessaloniki in June, however, specificially

requested the Commission and the High Representative for CFSP (Javier

Solana) to formulate a policy framework and working plan to strengthen

relations with the whole Arab world (building on existing frameworks including

the New Neighbourhood context). The resulting policy document, Strengthening

EU’s Relations with the Arab World, was presented to the Brussels Council

meeting in December 2003. Notwithstanding its title, it calls in fact for

complementing the EMP with a regional strategy for the ‘Wider Middle East’,

i.e. including Iran. Its key foci are (1) linking the EMP (and indeed the ‘Wider

Europe’ framework) with the ‘Wider Middle East’ – i.e. bringing in the Gulf and

Arabian Peninsula region, not least by ‘the linking of EU-MED and EU-GCC

free trade agreements, [and] including Yemen’; (2) fostering reforms; (3)

making the EU’s policies and policy instruments towards the MENA region

more coherent; and (4) the need to resolve the Palestine issue. On the latter,

strikingly, the document states: ‘the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is

essential. There will be little chance of dealing fully with the other problems in

the Middle East until this conflict is resolved; such a solution is therefore a


strategic priority for Europe’.40 Indeed, this ties in with the new European

security strategy (A Secure Europe in a Better World) adopted at the December

2003 Council meeting (but originally presented by Javier Solana to the June

Council meeting that commissioned the Arab strategy paper): this uses an almost

identical form of words.41

An important part of the context for this evolving European policy was the

evolution of US policy, not least the Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) put

forward in 2003 and 2004, which could be (and was) construed as potentially

duplicating or cutting across some of the EU’s existing initiatives. Not

surprisingly, EU responses combined a concern for maintaining trans-Atlantic

cooperation and coordination, with clear, if diplomatic, indications of concern.

Thus, a follow-up report on the progress of work towards an ‘EU Strategic

Partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East’ in 2004 stipulated that

the Union should define a role that was complementary to, ‘but distinct’ from,

that of the US.42

Meanwhile, it remained to be seen whether the renewed emphasis on political

reform in the MENA states, and the stated intention to make policies in this

regard more coherent, would be given tangible and effective form. Unsurpris-

ingly, the context of the ‘war on terror’ brought both a recognition of the

desirability of such reform and a reluctance to pressure friendly regimes too hard,

while there was also a strong awareness of the complexity of democratisation

dynamics. The previous pattern, featuring declaratory policy combined with

hesitant and inconsistent political pressure, may well in effect persist, shifting in

degree only. Formally, the 2003 EU guidelines for democracy and human rights

promotion commit the EU to put together agreed national plans for human rights

with the Arab states in the EMP, while there has been greater pressure on the

GCC to begin a dialogue on human rights. At the national level, since 2002

several EU states (Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, The Nether-

lands, and most recently Finland) established or expanded government

programmes, initiatives or sections related to the MENA region and to reform

in particular. As of 2004, though, actual follow-through remained very limited.43

Any attempt to understand the limitations of EU policy towards the MENA

region must also take into account a number of internal institutional constraints

that are sometimes overlooked (not least by critics in the MENA region itself).

Monar has shown how the dualistic nature of the EU system with regard to

foreign policy (the EC having competence for external economic relations, the

CFSP for foreign and security policy), has shaped the Union’s external

representation, decision-making procedures, instruments and implementation –

as well as being evident in the system of democratic control. This, he argues, has

had a threefold impact on the EU’s MENA policy. First, the EU remains ‘a

clearing house of different interests rather than a unitary actor’ – the Barcelona

process itself, for instance, flowing largely from the interests of southern

Member States. Second, there is ‘an in-built tilt towards the economic domain’,

since ‘CFSP is by far the weaker structure of the EU’s dual system of foreign

affairs’. And third, this dualism has created difficulties for the MENA partners in

terms of transparency and predictability. In addition, Monar exposes serious


problems of management, arising not least because the administration of EMP

has been shifted to the Commission without any new posts being created to cope

with this. The dualism also exacerbates the institutional problem of financing

initiatives, while, finally, causing problems in the conduct of negotiations.

Monar concludes: ‘Its partners have to accept that . . . the Union has in-built

limitations to its capacity to act and a considerable potential for blockages in the

decision making and policy implementation process’.44

A final observation is the imbalance which has been inherent in the

‘Partnership’. Instead, EU agendas and structures have remained central, with

southern Mediterranean states essentially acceding to, modestly amending, or

rejecting EU initiatives and formats. The recognition shown in EU policy

documents since 2003 (from the New Neighbourhood policy to the paper on

strengthening relations with the Arab world) of the need to address this and

foster a greater sense of ‘ownership’ on the part of the southern partner

countries, seems unlikely to reverse the underlying situation. Even so, the

enhanced focus on the Arab world as a whole, the strong emphasis placed

publicly on a resolution of the Palestine issue, and the attention for establishing

linkages between the EMP and EU relations with the GCC and Yemen, are

beginning to address some of the concerns felt on the Arab side about the nature

of the relationship.45

Sub-regional Approaches

For reasons of space I will not comment further here on the sub-regional

European initiatives towards the Maghreb, Mashreq and Arab–Israeli theatre,

already mentioned earlier, beyond pointing out the increased attention given to

them from the 1980s, and the subsequent revival of the more global approach;

this revival did not, however, mean the end of sub-regional initiatives. It is worth

briefly pausing in particular with the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council

(GCC), which, together with Iran, Iraq and Yemen, was left outside the RMP

and EMP.

Both sides had long-established interests that could be served by group-to-

group cooperation. From the Gulf point of view, these lay in access to Europe’s

market for petrochemicals and, generally, trade concessions similar at least to

those enjoyed by Israel. Europe’s interest was in domestic and regional stability

in the Gulf; the creation of a framework for petroleum imports from the Gulf;

and the fact that they had no formal cooperation agreements with any of the

countries concerned (nor were any of the members of the GATT). The

establishment of the GCC in 1981 appeared to hold out an opportunity to create

effective group-to-group cooperation – especially attractive given the contrast of

the faltering Euro-Arab Dialogue. In 1985, EC and GCC ministers agreed to

work towards a comprehensive trade and cooperation agreement. Yet is was not

until 1988 that the resulting framework cooperation accord was complete, and

1990 before it went into effect. The agreement followed the model of the EC’s

agreements with the ASEAN countries, laying the emphasis on economic

cooperation, and putting in place a joint council. Later in 1990, under the added

spur of the Gulf crisis, negotiations began on the full-fledged preferential trade


accord that the GCC states wanted to see. For some years, however, the process

remained essentially deadlocked. The initial EC mandate was rejected by the

GCC as too restrictive (implying protection for Europe’s petrochemical

industries) and a new round began in 1992. GCC access to the EC market

remained a stumbling bloc, and the European Energy Charter (December 1991)

seemingly aiming at reducing Europe’s dependence on oil, and the idea of a

‘carbon tax’ became further points of disagreement. Nevertheless, some

cooperation was progressing in other fields – including on environmental issues

in the Gulf, and in the form of a working party on energy cooperation.46

The hold of the European petrochemical producers’ lobby appeared gradually

to wane as the 1990s wore on, and the EC stance softened. But the EU pointed to

the GCC’s own failure to establish a customs union, as a major factor in

blocking a free trade agreement. With the GCC’s sudden acceleration in the

direction of just such a customs union (it was formally declared in January 2003

although practical implementation progressed more slowly) and an August 2003

EU-Saudi agreement regarding the Kingdom’s accession to the WTO (Saudi

WTO negotiations with some other countries remained to be completed), the

conclusion of an EU-GCC free trade agreement now seems a real possibility. It

remains the case, however, that gradual progress on the trade aspects of the

relationship have continued to be accompanied by frustration on the GCC side

over the lack of a political component and the grievance over being outside the

EMP orbit.47 This has been partly addressed by attempts to expand cooperation

in other areas – including the 1995 decision to include instruments of

‘decentralized cooperation’ (eventually encompassing such cooperation in

business, media and university/higher education – none of which had advanced

very far by 2004). As shown above, the gap was also recognised in a number of

policy documents in 2003 and 2004, which stressed the need to broaden and

deepen the EU-GCC dialogue, and link the EU-GCC and EU-MED frameworks

in some way, while also tying in Yemen. This fits into the second of the two

lines of action that appear to guide EU policy towards the MENA region as of

2004: one pursuing a deepening of EMP in the Wider Europe framework; one

working to develop a strategy for the ‘Wider Middle East’.48

MENA STATES’ FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS EUROPE: SUMMARY

FEATURES

The results of the factors and environments discussed above, for MENA states’

policies towards Europe, are several. I would suggest they can be summarized as

follows:

1. They are pragmatic rather than ideological.

2. They are based in the first place on a view of Europe as a source of

economic resources (markets, aid, investment) and technology.

3. Nevertheless, some constraint continues to be imposed by the Palestine

issue and its ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ echoes; this is heightened when

perceptions of increasing US hegemony combine with crisis in the Israeli–


Palestinian equation and a sense of government failure. The Iraq crisis of

2003 reinforced this.

4. Policies are also in some measure based on a view of Europe as a

counterweight to US. The experience of the Iraq conflict of 2003 may have

added some weight to this.

5. There is a residual effect of colonial/imperial relations, varying strongly

between different states.

6. MENA states differentiate between European states not only because of the

above factor, but also because of existing levels of economic links and

interests, and because of perceived differences in European states’ foreign

policy stances: differing reactions to France and Britain during the Iraq

crisis and war of 2002–03 are one instance that may have lingering effects,

although Britain continues to be judged as clearly on a ‘European’ trajectory

over the Palestine question.

7. There are large variations flowing from the nature, needs, and location of

the MENA state/regime in question. Those factors may be ‘material’ –

such as domestic political structure and interests, economic profile, and

strategic position – as well as ‘ideational’, in the perceptions and world

views of the leaderships (the latter in turn shaped by the interplay

between the regional, domestic and international ideational and material

environments).

8. Two significant irritants are European reluctance genuinely to open up its

own market in key sectors such as agriculture and petrochemicals and

European political pressure over political reform (made more problematic

albeit perhaps more necessary in a context of painful economic adjustment).

9. MENA policies towards Europe are individual (state) at least as much as

collective (Arab/Muslim/Gulf/Maghreb), as a consequence both of the

intra–MENA differences listed above, and Europe’s own approach, which

has been predominantly bilateral (albeit masked by a wider framework in

the case of the Mediterranean).

Detailed case studies should allow us to illustrate and/or test these preliminary

conclusions. The remainder of this volume hopes to constitute a first step in this

direction; to add more generally to our understanding of the dynamics of the

international relations of the Middle East; and to help feed back these insights

from the case of the Middle East into the wider field of foreign policy analysis

and IR.

NOTES

1. World Bank Data Series 1985–95.2. Observation and confidential discussions in Doha, Qatar, April 2003.3. The summary which follows is drawn from my ‘Rentiers and Autocrats, Monarchs and

Democrats, State and Society: the Middle East between Globalisation, Human ‘‘Agency’’ andEurope’, in International Affairs, Vol. 77, no. 1 (Jan. 2001), pp. 175–95.

4. Bahgat Korany, Rex Brynen and Paul Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratizationin the Arab World. Vol. 2: Comparative Experiences (Boulder: Lynne Rienner: 1998), pp. 269–71.


5. Ibid., p. 271 – an assessment based in large measure on the work of Gudrun Kramer (especiallyher ‘Islam and Pluralism’, in Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble (eds.), PoliticalLiberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Vol. 1: Theoretical Experiences(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995, pp. 113–28) along with other case studies.

6. Giacomo Luciani, ‘Resources, Revenues and Authoritarianism in the Arab World: Beyond theRentier State?’, in Brynen, Korany and Noble, Political Liberalization and Democratization inthe Arab World. Volume 1: Theoretical Experiences, pp. 211–28. For his and some others’earlier work on rentier states in the Middle East, see Luciani (ed.), The Arab State (London:Routledge, 1990).

7. See, for example, Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Democratization in the Middle East: The Evidencefrom the Syrian Case’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), Political and Economic Liberalization:Dynamics and Linkages in Comparative Perspective (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), pp. 153–68; and Hinnebusch, ‘Calculated Decompression as a Substitute for Democratization’, inKorany, Brynen and Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratization in the ArabWorld. Volume 2: Comparative Experiences, pp. 223–40.

8. See Tim Niblock and Emma Murphy (eds.), Political and Economic Liberalisation in the MiddleEast (London: British Academic Press, 1993); and Nonneman (ed.), Political and EconomicLiberalization.

9. Emma Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia: From Bourguiba to Ben Ali(London: Macmillan, 1999). Also her ‘Legitimacy and Economic Reform in the Arab World’, inSven Behrendt and Christian-Peter Hanelt (eds.), Bound to Cooperate – Europe and the MiddleEast (Gutersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 2000), pp. 311–41.

10. Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia, p. 8.11. See especially the collection by George Joffe (ed.), Perspectives on Development: The Euro-

Mediterranean Partnership (London: Frank Cass, 1999).12. Diana Hunt, ‘Development Economics, the Washington Consensus, and the European–

Mediterranean Partnership Initiative’, in ibid., pp. 16–38: p. 17. This is a useful review of the‘Washington Consensus’ and critiques of it, along with a careful examination of the case of thesouthern Mediterranean countries.

13. See especially the chapter by Alfred Tovias, ‘Regionalisation and the Mediterranean’ in Joffe(ed.), Perspectives on Development, pp. 75–88, as well as the contributions from Jon Marks,Grahame Thompson and Bernard Hoekman in the same volume.

14. Hunt, ‘Development Economics, the Washington Consensus, and the European–MediterraneanPartnership Initiative’, p. 30.

15. See Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998);Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); F. GregoryGause III, ‘Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations,’ in InternationalStudies Review 1:1, Spring 1999, pp. 11–31; and Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.), The ForeignPolicies of Middle Eastern States.

16. See the discussion in the previous chapter pp.13–14.17. For the case of Saudi Arabia, see Anthony Cordesman, The Gulf and the West (London: Mansell

Publishing, 1988), and id., Saudi Arabia: Guarding the Desert Kingdom (Boulder: Westview,1997).

18. This section draws on an earlier analysis in Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in British–Gulf Relations’, in J. Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (London: Palgrave,2001), pp. 315–50, at p. 339.

19. As illustrated in Iran’s posture during the Kuwait crisis and the 2001 campaign against Al-Qa’idaand the Taliban in Afghanistan. For analysis underpinning this assessment see also AnoushiravanEhteshami and Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated RegionalSystem (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 43–6; Gerd Nonneman, Terrorism, Gulf Security andPalestine (Robert Schuman Centre, Policy Paper no. 2002–02) (Florence: European UniversityInstitute, 2002) (obtainable from the EUI, 5www.iue.it4 ). I recognize this assessment issomewhat at variance with the analysis of Moshaver in this volume.

20. George Joffe, ‘The Western Arab World: Background Assessment’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.),The Middle East and Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration (London: Federal Trust,1993), pp. 197–201: at p. 200.

21. That is at least the view of Sid Ahmad Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria, as expressedat the Veme Forum International de Realites: Le Maghreb et l’Europe une vue a moyen terme(Tunis, April 24–26, 2002).


22. Roberto Aliboni, ‘Collective Political Cooperation in the Mediterranean’, in Roberto Aliboni,George Joffe and Tim Niblock (eds.), Security Challenges in the Mediterranean Region(London: Frank Cass, 1996), p. 57.

23. Dimitris Xenakis and Dimitris Chryssochoou, The Emerging Euro-Mediterranean System(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 17.

24. See Nonneman, ‘Constants and Variations in British–Gulf Relations’.25. Some of the most useful include Christopher Piening, Global Europe: The European Union in

World Affairs (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997), Chapter 4; Xenakis and Chrysochoou, TheEmerging Mediterranean System, part II; and Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stubkjær, TheEuropean Union and the Middle East (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), Chapters 3–5.

26. Piening, Global Europe, pp. 72–3.27. Haifaa Jawad, The Euro-Arab Dialogue: a Study in Collective Diplomacy (London: Ithaca Press,

1986).28. Gary Miller, ‘An Integrated Communities Approach’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), The Middle East

and Europe: The Search for Stability and Integration, pp. 3–26: at p. 7.29. Piening, Global Europe, p. 74.30. Ibid., p. 90.31. E. Grilli, The EC and Developing Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.

198.32. See the ‘Rome II’ European Council decisions of December 14–15, 1990, and the Commission

review that underlay it, ‘Re-directing the Community’s Mediterranean Policy’ (23 November1989); EC Commission, Bulletin of the European Community, November 1989, paragraph2.2.29. Also Commission Document SEC (90) 812, 1 June 1990.

33. EC Commission, DG External Relations, ‘Internal Paper on Regional Integration’ (mimeo) ofApril 9, 1991, p. 4.

34. The report was first published in 1992, and, in its 1993 edition, as Gerd Nonneman (ed.), TheMiddle East and Europe: the Search for Stability and Integration.

35. See Commission document COM (93) 375, September 8, 1993, laying out a new direction forEU cooperation with the Middle East; and Commission Document COM (93) 458, 29 September1993, on Europe’s possible role in the peace process.

36. ‘Strengthening the Mediterranean Policy of the European Union: Establishing a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’: COM (94) 427, October 19, 1994 (quote taken from p. 5).

37. For a recent review of the Barcelona Process, see Xenakis and Chrysochoou, The EmergingEuro-Mediterranean System, Chapter 4: ‘The Barcelona Process: Structure and Evolution’ (pp.74–94).

38. Wolf observes that the EU’s approach to the EMP combines ‘liberalism within and mercantilismwithout’. See his ‘Co-operation or Conflict? The European Union in a Global Economy’, inInternational Affairs, Vol. 71 (1995), no. 3, p. 333. See also the analyses in the edited collectionby Joffe (ed.), Perspectives on Development.

39. ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern andSouthern Neighbours’, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the EuropeanParliament, COM (2003) 104, Brussels, 11 March 2003.

40. ‘Strengthening EU’s Relations with the Arab World’, document presented by Romano Prodi,Javier Solana, and Chris Patten to the President of the Council, 12 December 2003. Available athttp://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/78372.pdf.

41. Council of the European Union, ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World. European SecurityStrategy’ Brussels, 12 December 2003. Available on http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/78367.pdf.

42. ‘Interim Report on an ‘‘EU Strategic Partnership with the Meditteranean and the Middle East.’’ ‘Note from the Council Secretariat to the Council (7498/1/04 REV1, 19 March 2004). Availableon http://ue.eu.nit/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/79886.pdf.

43. See also Richard Youngs, ‘Europe’s Uncertain Pursuit of Middle East Reform’ (CarnegiePapers, Middle East Series, No. 45, June 2004).

44. Jorg Monar, ‘Institutional Constraints on the EU’s Middle East and North Africa Policy’, inBehrendt and Hanelt, Bound to Cooperate, pp. 209–43.

45. For a good southern perspective see Mohammad El-Sayed Selim, Arab Perceptions of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research,2001) (The Emirates Occasional Papers, no. 42). See also the chapter by Emad Gad on Eygpt inthis volume.


46. Gerd Nonneman: ‘The Gulf: A Background Assessment’, in Nonneman (ed.), The Middle Eastand Europe, pp. 55–62: see pp. 60–61; and Miller, ‘An Integrated Communities Approach’, p.11.

47. These assessments are based in part on informal conversations with EU Commission officialsand GCC officials and academics, in a number of meetings in Brussels, Riyadh, Kuwait, AbuDhabi, and other locations over the period 1995–2003.

48. This was the explicit proposal in ‘Strengthening the EU’s Partnership with the Arab World’.


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